


Fresh Blood

by atimi (bertee)



Series: CWRPF: Intergalactic Problem Solvers [2]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Past Abuse, Slavery, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-19
Updated: 2010-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/atimi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After rescuing slave!Jensen from a people-eating space monster, intergalactic problem-solver!Jared tries to solve the problem of what to do with him now. However, when long-suffering mentor!Jeff inadvertently lands them all in a city full of vampires, simply staying alive becomes their biggest concern.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh Blood

If Jared had been a gambling man (and, y'know, a complete asshole), he would've bet against Jensen making it to the bathroom without passing out.

Fortunately for both of them, Jared wasn't a gambling man and, despite the fact that he was still shivering, Jensen was more stable than Jared had anticipated as they made their way down to the sleeping quarters of the ship, leaving a trail of bloodied rainwater on the floor behind them.

"This, uh- This is where me and Jeff sleep," Jared said in an effort to fill the awkward silence between them. Still supported by Jared's arm around his back, Jensen looked over at one of the small bedrooms and Jared corrected quickly, "Not that we sleep together. We sleep separately. In separate beds. Jeff's a good-looking guy but the thought of having sex with him makes me throw up in my mouth a little."

He wasn't exactly expecting Jensen to laugh at all his jokes but he felt kind of like a comedic failure when he didn't even crack a smile. 

His skin was still pale and clammy from a combination of rainwater, trauma and possible hypothermia, and the skopora's blood was still splattered across his clothes, arms and collared neck. He was skinny underneath his ragged clothes, his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and there were bruises on his face and abrasions on his wrists, all of which left Jared unable to work out whether food, sleep, medical aid or a shower was more of a priority for him at that moment.

Given that his own muddy pants and boots were making his legs feel unpleasantly squidgy, he decided a shower might be a good starting point and steered Jensen into the bathroom with the upbeat comment, "Let's get you cleaned up before you crash out. You'll feel better when you're in some fresh clothes and our shower is awesome."

Apparently less enthused about the shower than Jared was, Jensen looked at him uncertainly as Jared reached in to flick the shower on.

"Okay," Jared said again, determined to stay positive. "I'll give you some privacy to take a shower. Leave your clothes on the floor and I'll bring you some fresh ones. There's shampoo and body wash in there," -he pointed to the bottles inside the shower cubicle- "so take all the time you want. I'll be down the hall if you need anything else."

Jensen looked between him and the running water of the shower, and Jared nodded, motioning to his shirt in encouragement. "Go for it. I'll be right back with some clean clothes."

He backed out of the bathroom as Jensen turned towards the shower and pulled his shirt over his head. Jensen was half-naked before he could leave and Jared's eyes widened when the light fell on his bare back, highlighting the ridges of his ribs and, on top of those, the lines of scars criss-crossing his shoulders and spine in a messy pattern. 

Feeling guilty for looking (even if Jensen didn't seem to have noticed), Jared hurried out of the bathroom and made a mental note to pick up some heavy-duty healing supplies next time they docked on a Class 7+ planet.

 

****

+++

"Okay, spill."

Half-asleep at the table in the rec room, Jared blinked as Jeff dropped to a seat opposite him. He'd changed into some sweats and a tee after cleaning himself up in the sink as best he could, but cleanliness was apparently not enough to make up for a sleepless night. 

"Spill what?" he asked, yawning. "I had the c-bot clean up the mud we tracked in."

"I'm not talking about rainwater, Jared," Jeff said. "Tell me about the slave."

"Ex-slave."

"Ex-slave," Jeff repeated and Jared frowned, his mind sluggish with sleep.

" _Jensen_ ," he corrected again. "He has a name."

"Good to know." Jeff fixed him with a stare. "What else do you know about him?" 

Jared made a grumpy noise and Jeff added, mildly irritated, "Hey, don't get pissed at me. You brought someone new on board and I just wanna know more about them, that's all."

"I don't know much about him," Jared said, waking up more fully as he started to appreciate the seriousness of the question. "I couldn't just leave him there..."

"I know that," Jeff said, understanding but firm. "But I want to know more about the guy who's using our shower right now."

"He was living with one of the lords in the village," Jared offered. "I don't know if there were more slaves in the household before the skopora came along but it was just Somerville and Jensen when I got there. As far as I could see, Jensen did everything: cooking, serving, cleaning, the whole nine yards."

"I'm guessing his master wasn't a good guy?"

"Hell, no." Jared shook his head. "Somerville treated him like shit. He kept him in this tiny little bedroom that was basically a stable but with a mattress instead of straw, and he hit him at dinner, and he had him come to his bedroom that evening which I _know_ Jensen didn't want to do, and he tried to sacrifice him to a fucking skop, and-"

"Okay," Jeff interrupted. "I get it." He scrubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed. "It sounds rough, Jared, but if he's been abused - physically, sexually, whatever - he's going to need help. Probably more help than we can give him."

Jared started to protest but Jeff kept going. "I'm not saying this to be a dick, kid. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a completely heartless bastard. I feel bad for the guy, I really do, but shit like this needs to be handled carefully so we don't make him think that we're a threat to him like his old master was. We need to take him to Sam and Misha."

"But I can help him," Jared said. "I know it could take some time but I think he's starting to trust me. I-"

"Sir?"

Jared jumped at the voice from behind him and whipped around to look at where Jensen was standing in the doorway. He was dressed in the clothes Jared had laid out for him, the dark sweats falling down to cover his socked feet and Jared's hoodie swamping his slim frame, and his hair was still damp from the shower. The bruises on his face stood out more now that he was clean and Jared could just about see the collar peeking out above the neck of the hoodie as Jensen stood there, gaze darting between Jared and Jeff.

"Hey," Jared greeted with a broad smile and gestured for Jensen to come closer. "Come sit down. You feeling any better?"

While the shower had gotten rid of the mud, it evidently hadn't brought Jensen's voice back. He looked at Jared for a long moment before edging nearer to where he and Jeff were sitting at the table, but Jared's encouraging smile vanished when Jensen sank to his knees at his side, head down and hands folded neatly in his lap.

"Whoa, no." Jensen looked up at him, exhausted and confused, and Jared slid off his chair to crouch in front of him. "You don't need to do that. You're not a slave anymore. Here," -he pushed a chair out and patted the seat- "sit up here."

He guided him to a seat in the chair instead of on the floor and tried not to notice how Jensen perched on the edge as though expecting to be yelled at, beaten, or whatever else Somerville usually did to him.

"You can say whatever you want here," Jared offered, hating how scared Jensen seemed. "You don't need permission to talk or anything like that. How are you feeling?"

Jensen's fingers curled nervously in the fabric of the borrowed sweats but he still didn't speak. 

At a loss, Jared glanced over to Jeff for help but frowned when he saw that Jeff was watching Jensen through narrowed eyes, scrutinizing and evaluating just as Jared had often seen him do when faced with other, more life-threatening problems.

"Why are you-"

"Jensen," Jeff said sharply, and Jared shut up when he saw Jensen's head snap in Jeff's direction at the sound of his name.

Jared trusted Jeff, had done for years now, but that didn't stop him from feeling anxious about the way he was looking at Jensen.

"What planet did we just leave?" Jeff asked. "Which world are you from?"

Jensen didn't say anything and Jeff tried again. 

"What's your name, Jensen?"

Jared frowned. "What-"

Jeff held up a hand for silence and instructed, "Raise your right hand, Jensen."

Jensen looked over at Jared, helpless and lost, and Jared's shoulders sagged, realization hitting him even before Jeff gave his last gentle command, "Jensen, nod if you can understand what I'm saying."

Despite knowing better, Jared couldn't stop himself from looking hopefully at Jensen, pleading with him just to nod and prove that he and Jeff had reached the wrong conclusions. 

Unfortunately, Jensen didn't understand his psychic pleas any more than he understood Jeff's spoken request and Jared slumped back in his seat in defeat. "Fuck."

Jeff raised his eyebrows. "That's a fucking understatement."

"But he spoke to me before," Jared protested. "It's not like he can't talk..."

"He just doesn't understand a word we're saying," Jeff filled in, frustrated. "What the fuck, Jared? How could you not notice this?"

"I thought he was scared! I mean, I heard him talk to me down in Byton. He apologized when he ran into me in the hallway, and he said thank you for bringing him up here with me."

"But he never said anything to prove that he understood you." 

It wasn't a question and Jared couldn't argue when Jeff sighed, angry and annoyed. "Fuck, Jared. How could you do this? I know he had a rough life down on Thuma, but that's not an excuse for kidnapping him when he has no idea what's going on or who we are!"

"I heard him speak! I thought he understood!"

"Are you that fucking stupid?" Jeff yelled. "Thuma's a Class 4. Their technology is way behind ours and so not everyone's going to get a Lingua shot when they're born. Maybe some of the people in Thuma got shots imported from the city so that they could understand different languages, but they obviously didn't bother giving one to a slave." 

He took a breath and sounded marginally less furious when he said, "It's a method of control, Jared. I've seen it in other VSL societies - slaves can understand their master but no-one else. It keeps them isolated and stops them from trying to communicate with anyone to plan an escape."

Jared felt like he'd been punched. "I'm sorry," he said honestly. "I didn't know. I thought everyone could understand me if I had the Lingua shot."

"It only works one way," Jeff corrected. "The Lingua shot lets your brain translate whatever language you hear into a language that you can understand, but it can't do the same for your voice. Most of the time it doesn't matter since nearly ninety percent of the universe has had the shot and can hear everything in their mother tongue, but in a situation like this, there are serious limitations."

"We can understand him but he can't understand us," Jared summarized, sinking back into his chair. "What now? Do we have any Lingua shots on board?"

"Yeah, because I carry basic childhood injections in all my medical kits," Jeff said sarcastically. "No, Jared, we don't have any Lingua shots."

"Where can we get one? There's got to be a base around here somewhere that sells them."

Jeff leaned over and tapped his code into the panel on the side of the table, and Jared watched as the holographic map filled the space between the tabletop and the ceiling of the rec room. It changed constantly, tracking the movement of the (currently autopiloted) ship past the planets and suns that surrounded them, and he saw a blinking blue light appear on a distant planet when Jeff typed in his search function.

"Nearest source is on Kalic," Jeff told him. "It's a twenty hour journey at least."

Jared nodded, still feeling impossibly guilty for dragging Jensen into a situation that had to be terrifying for him. "I didn't mean to do this to him, Jeff. He didn't want to stay there - hell, he begged me not to make him go back to Byton. I was just trying to help."

"I know you were, Jared," Jeff said with a sigh. Much to Jared's relief, his earlier anger seemed to have faded and been replaced by a more sympathetic acceptance of the situation. "We'll get to Kalic soon and then we can get a better idea of how the poor kid is feeling about all of this."

"What should I do until we get there?"

Jeff gave him a half-smile. "Just look after him as much as you can. Check his injuries, give him some food, let him get some sleep." He glanced over at Jensen and sighed. "You might want to start by convincing him that he's allowed to actually sit on the chair."

Brow creasing in confusion, Jared followed Jeff's gaze and his eyes widened when he saw Jensen had managed to slide back to his knees without him noticing. 

"No," he said again, firmly, and dropped to his knees in front of him. 

Jensen flinched back sharply, eyes slamming shut like he was bracing for a blow, and Jared rested his hands on his upper arms as he soothed, "Hey, you don't need to be down here. You're not in Byton anymore and we don't want to treat you like they did."

Even though he knew Jensen didn't understand him, Jared smiled when Jensen looked up, apparently reassured by his tone of voice if not by his actual words. 

Smiling wider, he suggested, "How about we get you to bed, huh? I know I'm exhausted and I wasn't even the one who was tied up in the rain all night."

Jensen's expression was still one of uncertainty but he couldn't disguise the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He was passive and moveable under Jared's hands as he helped him to his feet, and Jared's already over-developed protective instinct was running at full tilt when he wrapped an arm around Jensen's shoulders and led him out of the room, calling back to Jeff as he went, "Get us to Kalic as fast as you can, dude."

 

****

+++

"Mnnnhg."

Scrunching his face up, Jared stirred from sleep long enough to bat at the disturbance. "Go 'way, Harls. M'sleepin'."

It went away and Jared shifted onto his side to fall back asleep. However, he let out a confused whine when his foot hit something that wasn't the end of his bed, and he groaned at the reminder that he was sleeping on the couch in the rec room instead of on his own awesomely cushion-filled bed.

He growled at the feeling of wetness against his face again and rolled over to nudge Harley away with his shoulder as he mumbled around a yawn, "No. Bad dog. No lick."

He tried to sink into the blissful peace of sleep again but was stopped by a nagging thought at the back of his mind. 

Groaning, Jared scrunched up his nose in sleepy confusion, baffled by what could be so important that his brain had to deny him his well-earned rest, but when the wet pressure came back and brushed against his lips, his mind finally connected the dots. 

Harley was on Hlax 2 with Sam and Misha. As his sleeping location in the rec room indicated, Jared definitely wasn't on Hlax 2 and so that meant that the pressure against his lips was...

"Jensen?!"

Jerking awake in shock, Jared scrambled to a sitting position and shoved Jensen away as he tried to catch his balance. 

He cringed when Jensen fell back hard, smacking his elbow against the floor and looking up at him, startled and scared. 

Jensen shrank back when he leaned down to help him, and Jared froze at the sound of him begging in fear, "I'm sorry, please-"

"Shhh," Jared interrupted, trying to make himself sound calm, in control, and not at all flaily. "It's okay. I'm not angry. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"I'm sorry," Jensen said again, and Jared figured it was a testament to how frightened he was that he was actually speaking at all. "I didn't- I was in your bed and I thought you wanted-"

"You were in my bed to sleep, Jensen," Jared said with a tentative smile, still shaken up from the realization of what Jensen thought was expected of him. "I _wanted_ you to sleep. You weren't meant to get up and come offer me sexual favors. That's not how this works, I swear."

Understandably, Jensen still looked anxious but Jared was happy that he didn't cower back when he eased himself off the couch and helped him back up to his feet. 

Rubbing his eyes and letting out a yawn, he held out his hand for Jensen to take. "C'mon. I'll take you back to the bedroom."

Jensen ducked his head as he followed obediently behind Jared. If Jeff had been awake, Jared was pretty sure he would've been offering some choice remarks on the hand-holding and on the fact that Jared had evidently been stupid enough to let Jensen think he wanted sex from him in the first place. 

(Not that he thought Jensen wasn't attractive. Sex was just way _way_ down on the list of things he wanted Jensen to do, which included sleeping, eating, healing, being freed, getting a Lingua shot, making a full psychological recovery, and being in a safe, non-threatening environment after all the time he'd spent with an abusive master.)

Jensen's fingers curled around his as they wandered down the hallway to the comfort of Jared's bedroom. The whole ship was fairly small and the size of the bedrooms reflected that, with most of Jared's room occupied by his expansive bed, with a dresser and a sink taking up the rest of the space. The term 'bed' was kind of a misnomer, given that it looked more like a pillow-filled nest that was built into an alcove in the wall so that the space above it could be used for storage and so that Jared could sprawl about in it to his heart’s content. 

Jared guided Jensen forward and helped him over the side of his nest-bed hybrid as he murmured, "Just sleep, okay?"

He mimed sleeping, just in case the bed wasn't enough of a clue, and he grinned in spite of his tiredness when Jensen's lips quirked up in a timid smile. "You get the idea?"

He turned to return to his temporary sleeping spot on the couch but was stopped by Jensen's hand closing around his wrist. 

Meeting his eyes, Jensen tugged just hard enough to get his meaning across, but Jared shook his head.

"No, dude. I know all this is scary but me being in here with you won't help with that. Go to sleep, okay? We'll get you a Lingua shot tomorrow and then we can sort all of this out."

He pulled his wrist free from Jensen's light grip but he didn't even make it three steps before hearing Jensen speak up. 

"Please." 

Against his better judgment, Jared turned back and his damn protective instinct stirred again at the sight of Jensen sitting on his own in the middle of his bed.

"This is yours," Jensen said quietly. "I know I'm stupid and I know I keep messing up, but you should be in your own bed. I can be better for you, or I can sleep on the floor if you don't want to-"

"Jensen." Jared took a deep breath, and then stepped forward to cup Jensen's cheek. Jensen's expression was open and wretched, and Jared said softly, "You're not stupid. If anyone's messing up here, it's me. I'm trying to do the best for you here, man."

Jensen's pleading look didn't falter and Jared felt his resolve weakening. He leaned in to press a kiss to Jensen’s forehead and let his eyes fall shut as he agreed, "Okay. I'll stay with you. We're not doing anything more than sleeping, and there are gonna be at least three pillows between us at all times, but I'll stay."

He climbed into the nest-bed beside Jensen and positioned a couple of pillows between their bodies to act as a barrier before making himself comfortable. He coaxed Jensen down next to him so that they were facing each other on opposite sides of the large bed, and he glanced over at the door, satisfied that Jensen wasn’t trapped between him and the wall and could make an escape if anything got too much for him. 

Jared fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow but he was awake just long enough to feel Jensen's fingers intertwining with his across the pillow barricade and to hear Jensen’s breathing leveling out as he finally succumbed to sleep.

+++

  
"Okay," Jared said, dropping to a seat at the table where Jeff was eating his breakfast, "full disclosure before you get on my case about it: yes, I shared a bed with Jensen last night, but we didn't go any further than holding hands because, unlike Lord Thomas Somerville, I am not a skeevy douche."

Jeff looked up at him, spoon raised halfway to his mouth, and Jared gave him a nervous smile. "You always said I should be honest, right?"

Jeff dropped his spoon back into the bowl and leaned back in his chair. "And good morning to you too, Jared. I slept great, thanks for asking."

Relaxing into a smile, Jared leaned forward to dip his finger in Jeff's food. Jeff slapped his hand away with a noise of protest and Jared licked the cooling oatmeal off his finger as he asked, "You're not mad?"

"Not mad," Jeff confirmed. "I don't think it's the smartest move right now but since you weren't on the couch, I figured you'd gone with him. Is he still asleep?"

Thinking of how Jensen had barely stirred when Jared had clambered over him to get out of bed, he nodded. "Yeah, he's out. He didn't get much sleep down last night on Thuma and there's no way his bed at Somerville's house was anywhere near as comfortable as mine is." 

He tried not to sound so proud of the comfiness of his sleeping quarters but goddamn, his bed was _awesome_. 

"How's he looking?" Jeff asked, evidently prioritizing Jensen's health over Jared's bed. "Is he sick?"

Jared shook his head. "I don't think so. He didn't feel clammy or cold, and he's got some of the color back in his cheeks. I need to look at his wrists but I'll give him some meds anyway once he wakes up."

"Wrists?"

"He was tied up for the skop," he explained. "The ropes rubbed his wrists raw when he tried to get away."

"This just gets better and better," Jeff said dryly before letting out a sigh and admitting, "Since we're having full-disclosure time here, you should probably know that Jensen came to my room last night."

Jared's eyes widened. "What? Why?"

Jeff fixed him with a withering look and Jared swallowed down the bile that rose up at the thought of Jensen exchanging sex for safety with anyone he could find. 

"Did he-" He took a breath and reworded his question. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Jeff promised. "Nothing happened. He scared the shit out of me when I woke up but I think I did the same to him. He tried to crawl into my bed but I showed him back to your room and figured that was the end of it." His eyes swept over Jared's face. "Since you two wound up sleeping together, I'm guessing that wasn't the end of it?"

"He came to me too," Jared said. "He tried to kiss me and then he practically begged me not to leave him on his own when I took him back to bed. I couldn't say no to that, man. He was actually talking for once and he sounded terrified..."

"It's okay," Jeff said and Jared felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease up at the assurance that he hadn't fucked up too badly. "It's gonna be hard for all of us until we get him a Lingua shot."

Reminded of their current destination, Jared looked at his watch. "Talking of Lingua shots, how close are we to Kalic?"

Jeff didn't even need to check the time. "Four hours, give or take."

"Thank God."

"You're welcome," Jeff returned with a shit-eating grin, and Jared laughed.

"You wish, dude."

"Hey, the priests thought I was a god when we were on Fnnpg," he said, still grinning even as he sighed. "Man, I miss Fnnpg."

"You're a dirty old man," Jared informed him. "Stop reminiscing about being worshipped. It freaks me out."

"Shut up and eat your breakfast, Junior," Jeff said, still looking annoyingly satisfied with whatever was running through his head. "I picked up some more oatmeal down on Thuma so you can indulge your cravings for prehistoric food."

"It's not prehistoric," Jared grumbled, wandering over to the counter and peering at the oatmeal in the pot. "It's vintage."

Jeff snorted. Jared pointedly ignored him as he switched off the automated stirrer and tipped a generous amount into his bowl.

"Hey, Jared?" Jeff called from behind him. "You might wanna make two portions out of that."

"Two? Why-"

He turned around to look at Jeff but his question was answered when he caught sight of the figure in the doorway.

Even after a good night's sleep in Jared's bed, Jensen still looked on edge as his gaze jumped between Jared and Jeff, and while the sleeves of Jared's hoodie fell down past his wrists, they didn't obscure the way his hands were curled into tense fists, presumably in an effort to hide his anxiety. His hair was sleep-mussed and his cheeks were a healthier color than they had been when they'd left Thuma, but Jared’s foolish hopes that a good night's sleep would be a cure-all were quashed at the sight of the red band across Jensen's throat from where the collar had pressed against his skin as he slept.

Jensen didn't make any attempt to move forward. Jeff, being the helpful guy he was, stayed quiet, and so it was left to Jared to approach Jensen cautiously, hands raised as proof that he wasn't a threat.

"Hey," he said with a smile. "You feeling any better, man?"

He didn't expect an answer but he wasn't too reassured when Jensen continued to watch him as though he was going to lash out at any moment. Keeping his voice quiet and friendly, Jared rested a hand on Jensen's upper arm and guided him over to the table with the suggestion, "How about some breakfast? Are you hungry?"

Even if Jensen had suddenly been able a) to understand him and b) to communicate that no, he wasn't at all hungry, Jared was pretty sure he still would've attempted to feed him up, and so he was more than happy to shepherd the silent Jensen to a seat and to set a decent-sized bowl of oatmeal in front of him. 

Jared dropped back into his own seat but darted forward to catch Jensen by the shoulders before he could slip off the chair onto his knees. 

“Whoa, dude.”

Jensen's shoulders were hunched and tense in his grip and Jared eased him back onto the chair as quickly and gently as he could before pulling away - apparently he couldn't even get through breakfast without making Jensen more scared of him than he already was. 

"Stay up here, all right?" he pleaded. "My face is way nicer to look at than my ankles."

Across the table, Jeff didn't even attempt to hide his laugh and Jared landed a playful kick to his shin in retribution. "Fuck you, Morgan."

Jeff flipped him off, his attention on the news bulletin that was being displayed on the table next to his bowl, and Jared turned back to Jensen who was still staring at his oatmeal like it was going to eat him rather than the other way around.

"It's safe," he said hopefully, nodding at Jensen's bowl of food. "It even came from your planet so it's not going to mess with your digestion like some of the crap Jeff buys sometimes. See?" By way of reassurance, Jared ate a large spoonful of his own syrup-doused oatmeal and made happy noises of culinary delight which were only a tiny bit exaggerated for Jensen's benefit. "You wanna try some?"

He tried to guess what Jensen was thinking as he looked between the two bowls of food, but he soon realized that mind-reading was not one of his (many) skills when Jensen pushed his bowl towards him.

"No," Jared said firmly, setting it back in front of him and placing the spoon in his hand to encourage food-to-mouth action. "That's yours, man."

Jensen's eyes lit up with understanding but Jared's relief was short-lived when Jensen scooped up a spoonful of food and held it up to Jared's mouth with practised obedience.

"What the- No, dude!" he said again, louder, and immediately felt like an ass when Jensen shrank back, unable to judge the situation on anything other than Jared's tone. 

However, the flash of fear was enough to get Jensen speaking again and Jared swallowed down his guilt to listen as Jensen blurted out, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" He ducked his head and mumbled nervously, "I can eat when you're done. I'm sorry, Sir."

"Eat when I'm-" This time he didn't need Jeff to draw the conclusions for him and disbelieving anger rose up at the realization. "You think I'm only going to let you eat leftovers? Fuck, is that what Somerville did? Is that what you ate when you worked for him?"

"Jared," Jeff warned with a concerned glance at Jensen. "Yelling isn't helping here."

Cringing, Jared reached out to close his hand over Jensen's and gave it a soft squeeze. "Sorry, Jensen. I'm not mad at you, I just..." He looked back to Jeff. "Can we go back and punch Somerville some more? Please?"

"He'll be in prison," Jeff answered, "and you have other things to worry about right now." He smirked. "Although if Jensen wants to go back to kick the shit out of him one day, I'd be down with that."

Somehow the thought of Jensen punching Somerville was even more satisfying than the thought of doing it himself, and Jared found himself smiling again as he focused on the problem at hand. 

Trying to keep his fuck ups to a minimum - yet still awkwardly aware that he was treating Jensen like a child - Jared pointed from the food in front of him to his own mouth, and then from Jensen's food to Jensen's mouth with an encouraging nod.

Jensen's brow creased in confusion but Jared seriously contemplated doing a victory dance in triumph when he asked timidly, "This is for me?"

Fortunately, rather than a dance of jubilation, Jared settled for a fervent nod of agreement followed by a beaming smile when Jensen finally, _finally_ began to eat, tucking into the oatmeal with barely disguised hunger and glancing over at him with a disproportionate amount of thankfulness. 

As far as Jared was concerned, the woman who invented the Lingua shot would soon be his favorite person out of anyone who had ever existed. Ever.

 

****

+++

By the time the computer announced that they had arrived in the orbit of Kalic, Jared's miming proficiency had improved by about 120%.

Given how appalling his first attempts at communication had been, there admittedly hadn't been many ways to go but up but nevertheless he was feeling strangely proud of what they had accomplished in the past four hours. 

Jensen's wrists had been coated in healing balm and bandaged up, and Jensen himself had been given the few precautionary vaccines that Jared could find in the ship's medical kits. 

Ideally, Jared would've prefered to wait until Jensen could understand him before shooting him up with strange and mysterious chemicals but Jeff had pointed out that there was a risk of illness and contamination just from being on a ship with so many traces of different worlds, and thus Jensen's immune system needed all the help it could get. The vaccines were designed with minimum pain in mind and so Jared had been relieved when Jensen had seemed more curious than hurt when Jared administered the shots.

Since four hours was far too long to go without food, he'd introduced Jensen to the wonders of bapa, which were always different but always awesome, no matter which planet he got them from. (With the possible exception of the city of Jop'da, where all the bapa were parakeet-flavored.) 

After his reaction to breakfast, Jensen had seemed to warm to the idea that he didn't need to eat leftovers and Jared was pretty sure he could've spent the whole day watching Jensen nibble at his bapa with genuine delight.

Despite his enthusiasm for the food, Jensen had been more reticent when it came to picking out clothes.

It had been a slow process which relied on Jared raiding both his and Jeff's stashes of clothes to work out what Jensen actually wanted to wear, rather than what Jensen would wear just because Jared told him to or because they were the cheapest clothes available, but after a long period of trial-and-error, they'd finally settled on a soft, long-sleeved shirt and some loose black pants which fit well around his hips and thighs even if they were slightly too long in the legs. 

Jeff had thus headed down to Kalic with instructions to pick up something in Jensen's size along with the all important Lingua shot, and so Jared found himself in the cockpit with Jensen, the planet stretching out below the stationary ship as he made another attempt at communication, this time with pictorial aids.

"Okay, to recap," he said, pointing to himself with an exaggerated motion, "I'm...?"

"Jared," Jensen filled in with a little nod, eyes darting down to the nametag that was stuck to Jared's shirt. (Fortunately, the Thumian language involved the same characters as Jared’s native tongue, even if its grammar and vocabulary were still thoroughly incomprehensible.)

"Awesome." He pointed to Jensen, whose nametag was written in his own neat script after he'd corrected Jared's spelling of _Jenson_. "And you're...?"

"Jensen," he said, sounding more confident this time. He was curled up in Jeff's seat, legs tucked up underneath him on the leather chair, but Jared was pleased to see that his body language was relatively open since this was the closest they'd come to an actual conversation since Jensen had arrived on board.

"And let's try for three in a row!" Jared encouraged, feeling like a tacky gameshow host but opting to embrace the cheesiness. He held up a sketched picture of a grumpy face with a beard and prompted, "This guy?"

Jensen's lips curved up in a tentative smile that Jared would've paid to see more often. "Jeff."

"Bingo." Jared had to hold himself back from offering him a high-five after Jensen’s previous reaction - he had assumed the slap would be across the face rather than palm-to-palm and had dropped to his knees in record time - but he gave him a proud grin instead. "Good job, dude."

Moving on to the next word, he gestured around them at the ship and then pointed downward as he emphasised the name, "The ship itself is called the Night-Rod." He felt ridiculous - hell, he'd mocked Jeff for years about the fact that his ship had a name like a bad porno - but he repeated for Jensen's benefit, " _Night-Rod_."

Looking at where Jared was pointing, Jensen enunciated, "Night-Rod."

Realizing that Jensen's gaze was fixed on his crotch as he spoke, Jared waved his hands in a flaily gesture of panic. "No, no, no, not my crotch. That- I don't call my dick 'Night-Rod'. I don't call my dick anything, but even if I did, I wouldn't call it Night-Rod because that's really creepy." 

He tapped the floor and then the flight console as he tried again, flustered, "The _ship_ is the Night-Rod. Not my dick. Emphatically not my dick."

Of course, because Jared had used up his daily supply of Good Things by getting Jensen fed, clothed, and vaccinated, Jeff chose that moment to stick his head around the door with the amused question, "What's emphatically not your dick?"

"Your ship," Jared said with a sigh. "Your ship is not my dick and I think I just accidentally told Jensen that it was. I'm kind of a failure."

Jeff chuckled. "Old news, Junior."

"Thank you for the support," Jared said sarcastically. "You're the one who chose a ship with a fucking creepy name in the first place."

"One, I didn't choose her," Jeff said, leaning against the doorjamb. "We ended up together through luck and circumstance. Two, there's a reason I call her 'baby' most of the time instead of her real name. And three," -he held up a small cylinder- "I got hold of a Lingua shot so you can explain all of that to Jensen without sounding like a creepy failure."

Jared's grin was broad and unquashable. "I love you."

"As you should," Jeff agreed. 

He deposited the bag of supplies by the door and wandered across to where Jensen was watching them with a mixture of confusion and open interest. The Lingua shot glinted in Jeff's hand as he asked, "You want to give it to him?"

Jared shook his head, more than happy for Jeff to do the honors. "All yours."

After giving Jensen the vaccines a few hours earlier, Jared thought he would’ve gotten used to the process but an unsettled feeling spread through him when he watched Jensen just sit there, still and vulnerable as Jeff approached. He caught the low words of reassurance that were directed at Jensen but he still felt sick when Jensen looked nervously at the shot that Jeff was holding up to his eye-level. 

Jeff's hand was on Jensen's head, tilting it back to get access to his neck, but while Jensen's willingness had seemed like a good thing when it had been Jared doing the injecting, his silent passivity was now disturbing to watch. He guessed it made sense in a way - Jensen had nowhere to run to and he had to know he would lose if it came to a fight - but Jared felt even guiltier for making him have the vaccinations when saying no wasn't really an option.

Jensen's eyes fluttered closed as Jeff held the cylinder against the skin just above the ring of his collar but Jared was the only one who flinched when he pressed the button to activate the shot. 

Jensen's head dropped down as soon as Jeff let go and Jared was by his side in an instant, cupping his face and shaking him awake. "Jensen? Jensen, stay with me. Jensen!"

"He's okay," Jeff said, tossing the used shot down the trash chute. "It can be disorienting at first while the brain's altering the way it processes sound. Just give him a couple of seconds and he'll be fine."

Jensen let out a soft groan, blinking his eyes open again, and Jared tried not to sound too panicked as he asked, "Jensen? You okay, man?"

Jensen frowned, his pupils contracting to tiny black dots at the center of wide rings of green as he struggled to focus.

"Can you understand me?" Jared asked, hope now mingling with panic in his voice. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Jensen's hands rested instinctively on Jared's arms as he fought off the haze of the drug but Jared felt his body jolt under his hands as Jensen froze in shock.

"Is that a yes?" he prompted. "Can you say yes if you understand me?"

Jensen's eyes were wide with disbelief but he didn't try to pull away as he stammered, "Yes. You- I can understand you." 

His fingers lifted to brush over Jared's lips as his previous terror was replaced (however temporarily) with overpowering curiosity. "How is that possible? I don't..."

"It was the shot we just gave you," Jared explained, backing off to give Jensen some space to deal with what was happening. "It changes the way you process sound so that you hear every language like it's your own. I think it does something to your vision too to synch people's lips up with their voices but that only works if you're both the same species." Jensen's face was pale and he reassured quickly, "It's not dangerous, I swear. Almost everyone in the universe has the Lingua shot at some point."

Jensen's breathing was quick and shallow as he looked around the room but Jared found that he was pretty impressed by the way Jensen was holding it together.

"Do you know where you are?" he asked him. "Do you know what's going on?"

Jensen swallowed hard and turned to face him after one final glance up at Jeff. "I'm your reward," he answered, sounding more sure of himself. "You stopped the scout and my master gave me to you as a payment for your services." In one easy move, he slipped from the chair to his knees in front of Jared. "You own me."

"No," Jared said with a firm headshake. "I don't own you." 

Jensen frowned but before he could go to offer himself to Jeff instead, Jared spoke again, "Okay, maybe I do technically own you but I don't _want_ to own you."

"You're selling me?"

Jensen's tone was carefully neutral but that didn't stop Jared from feeling like a piece of shit. "No! God, no. No-one's selling you. Just sit down, okay? You don't need to kneel anymore."

From the expression that flitted across Jensen's face, it was clear he was uncomfortable with the request but he obeyed anyway and sat back down on the cracked leather of the pilot's seat. 

Jared reached out to rest a hand on his knee and he met Jensen’s eyes as he said, "I know things were rough for you down on Thuma but I promise no-one's going to hurt you here. You don't need to obey us like that."

He smiled sadly and admitted, "I know I probably messed up by bringing you up here with me but me and Jeff, we're going to get you help. We got some friends over on Hlax 2 who specialize in this kind of thing, and they can help you make a life for yourself. You can do whatever you want there without having to worry about pleasing someone else all the time – trust me, it'll be awesome."

"You're leaving me?"

Jensen sounded more concerned by that than he did about being sold, and Jared answered before he could stop himself, "Not if you don't want me to."

Across the room, Jeff cleared his throat and Jared tried to rephrase. "I just wanna make sure you're okay. Sam and Misha are awesome and Hlax 2 is the perfect kind of place for you to get yourself together but once they get your collar off, I'll take you anywhere you want to go."

Jensen's fingers flew up to his collar and Jared watched him trace the surface of the thick metal ring before he asked timidly, "They're taking it off?"

Jared nodded. "Yeah. Well, only if you want them to, I guess, but I can't see why you'd want to keep it on now that you're free."

Jensen's eyes widened and he looked from Jeff to Jared for confirmation. "Free?"

"Yeah," Jared confirmed, surprised that Jensen hadn't realized that already. "Yeah, man, you're free." 

"You probably should've led with that part," Jeff said in a stage-whisper but Jared was pleased to see the unchecked grin on his face.

Jensen was still staring at him with astonished gratitude and Jared found himself smiling in return. "I know Somerville handed you over to me but we don't keep slaves here. Never have, never will. Hell, you shouldn't have been kept as a slave anywhere that was under the control of the UPB but I guess freedom's better late than never, right?" 

He cut himself off before he could ramble at him anymore and asked hopefully, "You get all this, don't you? We still need to get that collar off but you're free, Jensen."

Jensen nodded quickly, eyes bright and wet as he looked up at him. "I get it." He smiled, stunned but pleased. "Thank you, Jared. I don’t-" He bit his lip, apparently at a loss for words. "Just... thank you."

+++

  
Jared very rarely got tongue-tied.

It had happened once in an awkwardly literal sense when he and Jeff had been dosed with some lizard venom on Slgicia and had needed to keep their tongues out of the way to avoid accidentally getting to first-base with each other while they went in search of a cure, but other than that, getting tongue-tied hadn't been an issue for him before. However, while he was apparently a-okay with chattering away at Jensen when he couldn't understand him, now that Jensen could actually communicate, Jared's brain had shut down in delight.

Jared's brain wasn't all that smart sometimes.

Sitting on the other end of the couch, Jared watched Jensen take a sip of java from a mug that was nearly the size of his head and tried to will his brain to come up with something to say that was friendly and ice-breaking and not at all pathetic.

"Man, I love that mug."

Evidently his brain hated him and all he stood for.

Jensen looked between the mug and Jared, and timidly held it out as an offering. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"What? No, I didn't mean-" Jared sighed. "The mug is all yours, Jensen. I was just saying that it was a good mug. I didn’t mean that you needed to give me the mug because it's good. You should keep it for your drink because it's so good. At being a mug."

Jensen stared at him over the rim of the mug. Jared wished that he came with a failsafe which could just stop him from speaking before he deteriorated into crazytalk about the innate goodness of mugs.

Mindful of the fact that Jensen was still on board a spaceship with strangers, Jared made another attempt at initiating a normal conversation instead of making him more uncomfortable. "I guess I should start with some introductions instead of talking to you about mugs?" 

Taking Jensen's cautious smile as an encouragement, he asked, "Your name _is_ Jensen, right? Jensen isn't another word for 'slave' or anything like that?"

Jensen shook his head. "It's just my name. My family name was Ackles but that- I didn't need that with my master."

Feeling a twinge of sympathy at the reminder of Jensen's past, Jared tried to reinforce the difference between his previous situation and his current one as he said with a smile, "Pleased to meet you, Jensen Ackles. Jared Padalecki, at your service."

He gave a mock salute and tilted his head towards the cockpit. "Just in case my awesome picture wasn't clear enough, the guy in there is Jeff Morgan. He's the captain of this ship and he probably loves her more than he loves me."

Jensen lowered the mug of java to where his legs were tucked up underneath him and asked uncertainly, "Are you and him...?"

"Partners," Jared filled in quickly before Jensen could start guessing which one of them was the pitcher and which was the catcher. "Business partners. We've been working together for years but we don't have sex with each other. I mean, Jeff is great when he's not being a grumpy bastard but it'd be like having sex with my dad. Ick." 

He scrunched his nose up at the thought and was pleased when Jensen spoke up with a question, "So you and Jeff help people? Like you helped me?"

"Kinda," Jared agreed. "I guess our job title would be 'problem-solvers'. We don't work for the UPB or anything, but people call us in when there's a problem that needs solving, like the skop down in Byton."

"What's the UPB?"

Jared raised his eyebrows, surprised, and Jensen dropped his gaze to the mug of java as he stammered, "S-sorry. It's a stupid question. You shouldn't have to-"

"Hey," Jared chided. "It's not stupid. I'm glad you're asking these things." 

He crossed his legs and adjusted his position on the couch as he began to explain, "It stands for United Planetary Board, which is this big, connected group of planets from all across the universe. Each planet has its own government and laws but planets can apply to be part of the UPB, which has some centralized laws that everyone follows."

Jensen looked confused and Jared tried to simplify his explanation to something less space-tastic. "Think of the UPB like the nobles you knew back in Byton. They're all masters in their own homes but then they come together as a group to make decisions that affect all of them. Working as a group definitely has its benefits; the nobles can make better decisions and pool their resources if they need to, and the UPB can offer money, trade advantages, military back-up and a whole load of other things to its members."

Jensen took another sip of java before he asked, "Are all planets part of the UPB?"

"Nope," Jared answered, happy that Jensen understood enough of what he was telling him that he could ask useful questions. "Not all planets want to join the UPB. Some prefer to be independent, some don't have lifeforms which are advanced enough to take part in the councils, and some just don't want to follow the laws of the UPB."

He took a drink from his own glass of water and leaned forward as he continued, "For example, the UPB outlawed slavery and said that any lifeforms more advanced than animals couldn't be owned by anyone else. Any worlds who didn't agree to that were kicked out of the UPB - they don't let VSL societies become members anymore."

"VSL societies?"

"Violation of Slavery Laws," he filled in. "Or Violation of Slavery Legislation. Something like that. Either way, VSL planets get frowned upon by the UPB, _and_ by me and Jeff. Honestly, I think Jeff just likes frowning at most things."

Jensen smiled and Jared's own grin grew wider at the sight. 

"How did you meet Jeff?" Jensen asked, shifting position so that his body was angled more towards Jared. "Why did you start doing this?"

Jared's smile faded but he gave his answer before Jensen could withdraw again, "My town was destroyed when I was a kid. My-" He changed his mind and took a less detailed approach, "Jeff killed the things that did it and saved my life."

It felt like a strange inversion when he saw the sympathetic look on Jensen's face. "I'm sorry, Jared." He bit his lip and asked, "How old were you when it happened?"

"Fourteen." 

The answer was harsher than he'd intended and he ran a hand through his hair when Jensen lowered his eyes in apology. 

"I was fourteen," he said again, elaborating on his one word answer with an edited version of the whole story. "Almost everyone else in the town had died and so Jeff took me with him. I wanted to do what he did - kick some ass and take some really long, incomprehensible names - but he dropped me off on Hlax 2 with Sam so that I could finish my education." 

He smiled at the memory. "He kept coming by to visit every few weeks, although I don't know if that was because he wanted to see Sam or because he wanted to see me, but when I turned eighteen, he showed up on my birthday with a cake that was bigger than I was and the keys to his ship if I wanted them."

Jensen's eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Jeff did that?"

"Yep." Jared chuckled. "The grouchy, frowny side of him is just a front. There's a big squishy center hiding under there somewhere."

Jensen looked amused but dubious. Jared didn't blame him; grouchy, frowny Jeff was way more believable than happy, squishy Jeff.

As if on cue, Jeff yelled from the cockpit, "Heads-up, Junior! We're making a fuel landing in ninety seconds!"

"Where?" Jared yelled back.

"Like you'd fuckin' know it anyway," Jeff muttered, just loud enough for them to hear, but called in answer, "Colony 616. Sixty-five seconds, Jared."

"Got it." 

Leaping off the couch, he deposited his glass and Jensen's gigantic mug in the wash box and tugged Jensen to his feet with the hurried instructions, "C'mon, we should go strap in for the descent. You can get your first up-close look at another world."

He led Jensen up to the seats on the bridge and motioned for him to copy the way he fastened himself into the chair. The ship trembled around them as they sped towards the atmosphere of the planet below, and Jensen reached out instinctively to grab his hand, watching with wide eyes as the gaseous clouds engulfed the ship.

"It's all right," Jared promised, curling his fingers around Jensen's as the ship plunged downward. "I know it's kind of terrifying but you'll get used to it." 

The ship lurched to the side but righted itself quickly as the gas clouds started to thin out, leaving them with a yellow-tinted view of the world outside. The thrum of movement settled into a steadier rhythm as they continued to descend and Jared was relieved to see Jensen looking out of the window with interest rather than terror.

"This is just a fuel stop," Jared told him. "We should probably stop off somewhere more impressive before we take you to Hlax 2, but I guess this is a decent introduction to space." 

He looked out to the sulfurous surface of the planet where the pale, smoky landscape was dominated by the sprawling mass of the colony buildings. "We went to Colony 367 a few months back and this looks like the same kind of deal."

Jensen remained entranced by the world outside. "What is it?"

"They're human colonies," he said. "They choose a world with an atmosphere that doesn't support oxygen-dependent lifeforms and they construct a massive, enclosed complex to protect themselves from the gases outside." He pointed at the dock they were aiming for and the miles and miles of protected living space which stretched out at either side. "There were a few colonies which didn't work out but as far as I know, it's a good system."

"It's amazing..." Jensen murmured, leaning forward to look below them as Jeff piloted the ship downwards into the open dock. "How can the ship land here if they need to keep the gas out?"

"Invisible forcefields," Jared said, grinning when Jensen looked suspicious. "It sounds insane, I know, but they exist. It seems like they have forcefields for everything now."

Making a mental note to give Jensen a Forcefields 101 lesson at some point, he pointed to the tall buildings and long roofs on either side of the docking port. "Forcefields can break down if there's a power shortage so colonies like these usually have a more solid barrier too. The structures themselves are huge but it can still get kind of claustrophobic in there sometimes." He shrugged. "I guess I just like the great outdoors."

The ship juddered one final time as they sank down through the barriers of the forcefield, and Jared flicked open his seatbelt as Jeff landed them safely in the port. 

Jensen's hand was still clasped tightly in his, and Jared loosened his grip as he asked gently, "You good?"

Jensen pulled his hand away, cheeks turning pink in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," Jared promised, reaching out to unfasten Jensen's restraints and then to take his hand again with an easy smile. "I'm here to help, remember? Holding hands totally falls in that category."

He squeezed his hand, trying to prove that Jensen didn't need to be ashamed of wanting reassurance, especially for something as new and scary as plummeting through the atmosphere of a new planet. 

He stroked his thumb over Jensen's knuckles when Jensen gave him a tiny smile and said quietly, "I- I don't know why you're doing this for me but thank you, Jared." He turned to face him so that their legs rested together, but his voice barely more than a whisper when he repeated, "Thank you."

Prepared to dismiss it as nothing, Jared was taken aback when he found that Jensen's lips were pressed against his before he could get the words out. It took a beat for him to realize what was happening - Jensen was just _there_ all of a sudden, his body and lips still tense from the landing - but he let out a muffled yelp of protest when Jensen started to actually kiss him.

Shaking his head as much as his position would allow, Jared pulled back. "Whoa, no, dude. Don't-"

Jensen cringed back, dropping to his knees at his feet and lowering his head as he apologized for what felt like the hundredth time, "I'm sorry."

"Jared!" Jeff called from the other side of the ship. "I'm going down to refuel. You and Jensen can go look around if you want but we're leaving for Hlax 2 as soon as I'm done."

"Got it!" Jared shouted back. 

The universe was on his side for once and he let out a relieved breath when he heard the ramp lower, signaling that Jeff was disembarking rather than coming to see how much Jared was fucking things up between himself and Jensen. Shuffling forward on the chair, he settled on his knees beside Jensen and coaxed his head up as he said, "You don't need to apologize for every little thing, Jensen, and you really don't need to kneel when you're around me. C'mon."

He sat back in his seat, making sure Jensen was sitting down too before he asked, "You know that I'm not expecting that from you, right?"

Jensen opened his mouth but Jared continued, "And don't say you're sorry." He rested his hand on Jensen's shoulder and brushed his fingers over the metal collar around his neck. "I know that Somerville made you do things for him but you don't need to do that now you're free. I helped you because I wanted to, not because I wanted something in return."

Jensen wouldn't look at him but he gave a barely-there nod. "I'm s-" He folded his hands in his lap, still radiating anxiety. "I won't do it again."

Jared sighed. He was pretty sure he was still saying the wrong thing but since the right thing remained infuriatingly elusive, it was the best he could do. 

"D'you wanna go look around?" he asked hopefully. "We can go explore Colony 616 until Jeff gets bored and wants to leave. He's like an impatient toddler, except middle-aged and with a spaceship."

Judging by the reappearance of the smile on Jensen's face, making fun of Jeff was the most efficient tension-breaker ever. 

Getting to his feet, Jared led the way through the ship and jogged down the lowered ramp to the open space of the docking port. Jensen was a few steps behind in his borrowed boots, and Jared found himself watching Jensen rather than the world around them as he stared up at the swirling yellow sky in amazement. 

"Impressive, huh?" he said with a grin. "They pick some weird-ass places for colonies but at least this one looks good."

"It..." Jensen trailed off, astonished. "I've never seen anything like this before."

There was a clanking from somewhere behind them, loud enough to make Jensen jump and look back warily, but Jared explained, "It's just Jeff refueling. The ship runs on star energy which needs to be filled up every few months, so we get random pit-stops sometimes while Jeff tops her up. It won’t take too long."

Jensen nodded in understanding and they both turned away from the ship to take in their surroundings. Two sides of the port were open, with the forcefield as the only thing that was separating them from the world outside, but the other two sides were blocked by immense walls which made up part of the outer barriers of the colony.

One wall was clearly designed to be an entry way, just as the opposite wall was clearly designed to keep people out, and Jared let his head fall back as he looked up at the imposing barricade. It rose up towards the sulfur sky, layers and layers of carved stone with the wide arch of a glass doorway in the center of it. Squinting into the darkness behind the door, Jared could see the glint of more glass doors, acting as further barriers against contamination, but he couldn't see any signs of movement inside any of them.

Intrigued, he wandered closer to look at the alcoves embedded in the wall itself. They were decorated with swirls and symbols which presumably meant something to the inhabitants of Colony 616, and each one housed a stone made of the same stone that had been used to create the walls. The overall effect was one of gray and black against an atmosphere of yellow with half-shadowed faces looking at him from every angle, and Jared tried to ignore the feeling of unease in his gut as he reached out to rest his hand against the cool stone.

"Jared?"

Jared held back a yelp at the sudden interruption to his thoughts and he followed the voice to where Jensen was looking at a statue which was standing serenely in its alcove.

"What's up?" he asked, not noticing anything particularly remarkable about the statue. "Everything okay?"

Jensen swallowed hard, eyes still fixed on the statue. "Does this place have slaves? Is it a VSL planet?"

Jared frowned, his defensive instinct rearing up at the thought of Jensen being scared of further slavery. "I don't think so. All the colonies came from Terra originally, which is one of the most powerful members of the UPB. I guess one colony could've broken off from the rest but it doesn't sound all that likely. Why?"

"The statues," Jensen said quietly, reaching out to touch the stone figure in front of them. "They're wearing collars."

Jared's gaze darted over to the statue and his eyes widened when he saw that Jensen was right; the statue was in the likeness of a human man dressed in a formal robe with the thick band of a collar around his neck. 

Worried, Jared backed up from the wall until he could see some of the statues in the other alcoves but the feeling of unease only intensified when he saw that they were wearing collars too.

"Maybe it's not what we think," Jared said, moving slowly back towards the ship with Jensen right next to him. "Maybe the statues are of their ancestors who escaped from slavery, or maybe it's something religious, like they're praying for people who are still slaves."

He was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince Jensen but when the fear on Jensen's face mirrored his own feelings, Jared realized he wasn't succeeding at either of his goals. He felt his heart pounding in his chest as row upon row of collared statues stared down at them, but his head snapped to the right when he caught a flicker of movement in the darkness of one of the alcoves.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?" Jensen asked. "I didn't-" 

His words disappeared with a sharp intake of breath and Jared followed his gaze as Jensen stammered, "It- There's something there. There's something in the walls."

Jared's heart skipped a beat when a noise like a thunderclap sounded through the docking port when a dark shape pounded on the glass of the doors and then vanished back into the shadows.

"What was that?" Jensen asked, panic becoming clearer in his voice. "That noise..."

"There's something behind the doors," Jared said, reaching out to ensure Jensen was with him as he prepared to run. "We need to get out of here."

There was no protest from Jensen as they whirled around, ready to sprint back to the safety of the ship and to get out of Colony 616 for good.

They didn't make it more than two steps before their path was blocked.

The rush of fear which flooded through Jared's veins was instantly followed by a rush of relief, and he lowered his fist when he saw that it was Jeff standing in front of him. 

Breathing heavily, he clapped Jeff on the shoulder as he gasped, "Fuck, man, you scared the shit out of me. Listen, there's something here – it’s in the walls and inside the colony itself. We can send out a Com message for help but we really need to get out of here."

Jeff didn't answer and Jared frowned when he tilted his head at them, glancing curiously between him and Jensen. 

"Jeff? Come on, dude, we need to go."

He reached up to clasp his shoulder again but halted when he saw the bloodstained rip in the shoulder of Jeff's clothes.

"Where did that come from?" he asked, suspicion creeping into his voice as he instinctively moved in front of Jensen. "Jeff, what happened?"

Lowering his gaze in amusement, Jeff chuckled, but Jared felt Jensen freeze up behind him when Jeff lifted his head and smiled widely enough to reveal a pair of sharp, white fangs.

+++

  
Sometimes Jared wished that bloodthirsty space monsters would pick a method of attack that didn't involve lifting him up and hurling him through the air.

Landing hard on the solid ground of the docking port, he rolled to a stop against one of the ship's legs and let his head fall back with a pained grunt. Still stunned that Jeff – _his_ grumpy, squishy-centered Jeff - had just tossed him across the port, Jared pushed himself up to a sitting position and blinked his eyes open to see what the hell was going on when Jeff's laughter echoed under the elevated belly of the ship.

His eyes widened when he saw Jensen on the ground by another of the ship's legs, groggy but conscious, and he called out in panic as Jeff started to stalk towards him, "Jensen, watch out!"

He was relieved that Jensen could actually understand his shouts this time but that relief didn't last long when Jeff leaned down and hauled Jensen to his feet, slamming him back against the metal support and wrenching his head to the side to make it easier to bite him. 

Jared was on his feet instantly, sprinting across the port to get there before whatever had happened to Jeff could happen to Jensen too, but he gained a few more seconds when Jensen shoved Jeff back with force, aided by sheer desperation rather than any kind of combat training as he pushed Jeff's fangs away from his throat. 

Jared saw Jensen glance in his direction but he was knocked to the ground by a violent punch from Jeff before he could shout for help. Jeff loomed over him, his movements jerky and alien as he strode towards the cowering Jensen, and Jared caught Jensen's terrified pleas as he ran closer, "No, please! Sir, please!"

Moving too fast to stop himself, Jared went barreling into Jeff right before he could sink his teeth into Jensen's neck. They crashed to the ground together and Jared rolled them over so that he was on top, trapping Jeff's wrists beside his head and pinning his body down with his own weight. 

"What the fuck?" he spat, not really expecting an answer. "What the hell happened to you?"

Jeff snarled at him, displaying his extended teeth, and Jared struggled to hold him down as he reared up with a cruel smile.

"I'm going to tear you apart, boy," he growled. "I'm going to rip the tendons from your body and scrape every ounce of flesh from your bones while you scream for your fucking life." 

He snapped at Jared's throat and Jared pulled back far enough to avoid being bitten. 

Smiling darkly, Jeff promised, "When I'm done with you, I'll start on him." He nodded to where Jensen was standing and chuckled, extended teeth glinting in the shadows. "How about it, Jared? You think he's a screamer?"

"Jared."

Jared glanced up at Jensen's interruption but he didn't dare take his focus off Jeff for too long. 

"Don't worry," he reassured him. "I'm not going to let him hurt you."

Jeff laughed again, relaxing in Jared's hold, and Jared frowned as he got a better look at the blood-red rings that had appeared around the brown of Jeff's irises.

"You keep telling yourself that, Junior," Jeff taunted with a purposeful lick of his lips. "I'm sure he'll remember it when I'm draining him dry."

"Jared," Jensen said again. "Jared, you need to see this."

"Please tell me this is good news," Jared muttered to himself before asking louder, "What's up?"

"There's more of them," Jensen said, eyes fixed beyond the underbelly of the ship on something Jared couldn't see. "They- They're coming out of the wall."

"Shit..."

Torn between holding Jeff down and getting up to assess the situation, he looked up at Jensen again. "How many and how long have we got?"

"Fifteen to twenty," Jensen estimated quickly. "If we want to get to the ship before they reach us, we need to move now."

Jared nodded, trying to come up with a plan. "Okay. I need you to run for the ship and get me a weapon. Blaster, knife, grenade, whatever you can-"

He was cut off mid-sentence when Jeff took advantage of his distraction and bucked up beneath him, wrenching his wrists free from his grip and throwing Jared off-balance as he leapt to his feet. Jared heard Jensen's shout as he fell to the ground but couldn't say anything in response when Jeff pounced again, pulling his head back by his hair and pressing his nose against his neck as he breathed in deeply.

"You smell good enough to eat, Junior," Jeff mocked, his voice low and menacing. "Man, I can't believe I kept a pathetic kid like you alive for this long." He licked along the length of his neck and laughed when Jared flinched away at the sickening touch. "At least I get a decent meal out of you now - you were a scrawny fucker when you were fourteen."

Jared tensed as Jeff bared his fangs, bracing himself for the pain of the bite, but he found himself gasping for air when Jeff suddenly dropped him to the floor. 

Jeff collapsed on top of him a second later, his body slumped against his legs, heavy and motionless, and Jared looked up in shock to see Jensen standing over them clutching the metal pipe that had been used for refueling the ship. 

"I-" Jensen swallowed as he looked at Jeff's body. "I thought-"

"You did the right thing," Jared said, pushing himself to his feet and putting a hand to his neck to check that Jeff hadn't broken the skin. "Good job, dude."

The illusion of victory was fleeting and it ended abruptly as the other creatures made their way across the landing dock, with their teeth bared and with bloody wounds standing out on their torn necks. Doubting whether they were going to make it to the safety of the ship in time, Jared bent down to grab Jeff's upper body as he called to Jensen, "Get his feet! We need to get up on the ship before they reach us."

Jensen didn't hesitate to obey. Hauling the unconscious Jeff up off the ground with his help, Jared staggered backwards towards the ramp and did his best to pick up the pace as the rest of the fanged monsters reached the shadow of the ship. 

"Jensen, watch out," he warned, not sure how much of a defense they could mount with the one pipe that was still tucked under Jensen's arm. "They're coming."

Jensen's face was pale when he glanced over his shoulder to see the creatures snarling as they started to run towards them. The nearest one, a woman with green hair and a bloody neck, leaped forward with an inhuman yell, and Jared stumbled under Jeff's weight as Jensen dropped his feet and spun around to knock her away with the pipe. 

"Nice work!" Jared yelled, still pulling Jeff backwards towards the ramp. "We're nearly there, man. Hold them off if you can but don't let them bite you."

Jensen nodded and tightened his grip on the pipe as three more creatures bounded towards them, blood already staining their teeth and mouths. Jared was ready to drop Jeff and join the melee if it came to that but his head snapped up when a loud shouting rose up over the noise of creaking machinery. 

The creatures were distracted too and Jared followed their gaze to where the tall glass door in the face of the wall was sliding open. More figures came running out into the docking port but before Jared could give Jensen any advice on the best defense now that they were even more outnumbered, their desperate shouting reached his ears. 

"Help us! Please, please don't leave us with these things!"

Stunned by the realization that they were human still, Jared could do nothing but watch as the creatures changed direction, moving away from him, Jensen and Jeff to circle around the new prey. The people who had run out of the colony were armed, more armed than he and Jensen were, and Jared kept his eyes on them for a moment longer as he watched a woman swing a blade at one of the creatures, taking its head off with a swift strike and stepping back as it dropped to the ground, dead. 

"What should we do?" Jensen asked, his eyes darting between the people, the creatures, and the infected Jeff who was still knocked out. "Can we help them?"

"We aren't gonna be any help like this," Jared said, already hating himself for the decision. "We need to get Jeff onto the ship and locked down, and then we can get some weapons and help the survivors. C'mon, take his feet."

Between the two of them, they carried Jeff's body over to the entrance and the metal ramp as the fight raged on in front of the immense wall of the colony. Breathing hard with the exertion of carrying Jeff, Jared watched helplessly as the creatures descended on more of the survivors, ripping one woman's throat out and draining the blood from a tall, muscled man as he gasped and struggled. 

He turned away when they moved up the ramp, trying to take the situation one step at a time as he led Jensen towards the cell in the corner of the control deck, thinking out loud in the process. "We can leave him here until he wakes up. Even with the extra strength, the bars should be strong enough to hold him until we can figure out a way to reverse it."

" _Can_ we reverse it?"

Jensen's question was quiet and scared, and it was only too easy for Jared to pretend he hadn't heard it as they dumped Jeff in the tiny cell and waited for the bars to slide down into place. Raising the main ramp back up, Jared moved across to the weapons store and fastened his usual belt and equipment around his waist before sliding a blaster into a holster and arming himself with a long, solid blade as he asked, "Can you handle a weapon?"

Jensen looked overwhelmed as he eyed the contents of the storage panel but he nodded. "I can try."

"Good." Jared picked out a blade that matched his own, figuring that they knew at least one way to kill the creatures, and passed it to Jensen with the advice, "Just do what you can, okay? I'll try to take the brunt of it."

He frowned when he realized that Jensen was looking past him out of the windows on the bridge, and turned to see what had caught his attention.

His heart thudded in his chest when he saw that the people he'd used as an involuntary distraction had already been reduced to little more than a bloody smear on the ground. 

The creatures were feasting, tearing off limbs and tearing out guts as they drained the bodies dry, and Jared watched, stunned and sickened, as the creatures ripped out the ribcage of one of the few who were still alive and conscious, and consumed its contents with savage delight.

Jensen moved to stand next to him and sounded as fearful as Jared felt when he asked, "What do we do?"

Jared shook his head helplessly. "I don't know. I don't even know what these things are, and now that Jeff's one of them..." He ran a hand through his hair. "I need to think."

Productive thoughts didn't come easily when he watched the last surviving human break away from the slaughter. The guy couldn't have been older than twenty-five, with dark hair and a leg that was bleeding heavily, and Jared shifted back in preparation to open the smaller hatch as the man limped towards the ship as fast as possible, shouting something inaudible as he ran.

"Jared..." Jensen whispered, horrified. "He's not going to make it." 

Jared stopped in his tracks and turned back to see one of the creatures hot on the guy's heels as he tried to make it to the ship. 

However, any attempts to help were rendered futile in an instant when the creature tackled its victim, crushing him down onto the ground and wrenching his head off his body in one brutal move.

Beside him, Jensen recoiled in shock but Jared's eyes stayed fixed on the scene in front of them as the creature lifted the man's severed head to let the warm blood drip into its mouth. Two more of them seized the man's corpse and Jared turned away on the pretense of double-checking the locks on the doors as the creatures began to rip the body apart.

When he made it back up to the control deck, Jensen was still standing at the window, the blade resting at his side as he stared out at the carnage in the docking port. Hating that he'd dragged him into this, Jared approached him from behind and laid a hand on his shoulder as he made an empty promise, "We're going to get out of this."

Jensen craned his neck to look at him. "We're leaving?"

Leaving wasn't even an option and Jared didn't hesitate before shaking his head. "No. We can't leave, not with Jeff like this. There has to be a cure or some way to reverse whatever happened to him, and the colony is the best place to start looking for it."

From the way Jensen's mouth opened and closed, Jared guessed he wanted to protest but the years of servitude had apparently taught him otherwise since he settled for a simple declaration of obedience. "Yes, Sir."

"No," Jared said quickly. "Don't you start treating me like I'm your master." He moved around to face him and rested his hand against Jensen's neck as he said, "I need you to be _you_ , Jensen, not some slave waiting for orders all the time. You did good back there and I'm gonna need you to think on your feet if we get in any more trouble, okay?"

Jensen nodded and Jared managed to summon up a smile. "Good."

A violent clang shuddered through the ship, loud enough to make them both jump, and they looked to the window to see one of the creatures crawling up the hull of the ship outside the window. It was close enough that they could see the blood dripping from its mouth and the redness which now filled the whites of its eyes, and Jensen backed up as the creature licked its bloody lips. 

It hammered on the window, smiling nastily at both of them, but Jared couldn't hold back a grim smile of his own as he reached over to turn on the electric defense shield. 

The creature flung itself away with a scream as electricity coursed through the body of the ship, sparking against its skin until it scrambled back and tumbled off the hull, and Jared turned to Jensen with the assurance, "That'll keep them away until we can figure out what to do next. Of course, it would help if I knew what the fuck they are..."

"Vampires," Jensen blurted out before dropping his eyes when Jared looked in his direction.

"Vampires?" Jared frowned, trying to remember what kind of lifeforms inhabited Jensen's home planet. "Have you seen these before?"

"No, I-" Squaring his shoulders, Jensen raised his eyes again and explained, "They were just a story when I was growing up. People said vampires had fangs, like those things out there, and that they fed by drinking human blood."

"Where did they come from?" Jared asked urgently. "How do we kill them, and how do you stop someone from being one of them?"

Jensen looked even more nervous under the barrage of questions but he answered anyway, "I don't know where they came from originally. According to the stories, they could turn people into vampires by biting them-"

"That has to be what happened to Jeff," Jared said, feeling almost relieved now that he had some idea of what was going on. "His shoulder was bleeding - one of the things must've infected him but died before it had the chance to kill him."

Jensen seemed uncertain. "The transformation was different in the stories. Vampires were the undead - people had to be buried and then rise up from their graves to become one..."

"But Jeff isn't dead," Jared filled in. "So maybe these things aren't vampires. You said it yourself, vampires were just a story on your planet, but maybe these things are what the story was based on." Encouraged by these new deductions, he asked, "How do we reverse it?"

"You can't."

Jared froze but Jensen kept talking, refusing to meet his eyes, "Once someone gets turned into a vampire, you can't turn them back again. The only way to stop them is to kill them, either by cutting off their head or by stabbing them in the heart with something made of wood." He glanced up quickly, as though scared of Jared's reaction. "Jared, I'm sorry."

"No," Jared snapped, running up against a mental block every time he tried to deal with the idea of Jeff being gone for good. "No, there has to be a way."

He walked away, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart. "The stories aren't always right. Maybe they aren't right about this." He crossed the control deck with swift strides and tapped the button to activate the computer. "The ship's database has a record of almost every species out there. It can tell us what he really is, and then we can work out how to fix him."

"Jared..."

"Don't," he interrupted, upset and angry. "Don't say that I'm wasting my time or that I need to let him go or any other shit like that. I'm not just going to let this happen to him if I can do something to stop it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jensen move to stand next to him but he kept his blank gaze on the computer as Jensen said with quiet determination, "What can I do to help?"

Letting out a slow breath, Jared blinked back tears and looked up at the scrolling pages of the computer hologram. "We don't have enough information to search manually so we need to give it a sample."

Across the room, the bars of the cell rattled as Jeff stirred, his boots bashing against the metal when he shifted position, and Jared spoke faster, pointing to the input channel of the computer, "All we need to do is give it a sample of whatever infected Jeff and it'll tell us what species these things really are."

"What kind of sample?"

"Enough to get a reading on the kind of lifeform we're dealing with," Jared said, turning his chair around to watch Jeff pull himself to his feet. "Body tissue and saliva are usually good enough but a blood sample would probably work better here."

Inside his cell, Jeff started to laugh and Jared's earlier optimism faded quickly when he realized the implications of what he had just said.

Apparently Jensen had come to the same realization, and his voice was a nervous whisper against the sound of Jeff's mocking laughter as he asked, "How are we going to get a blood sample?"

+++

  
"You ready?"

Jensen looked anything but ready when he glanced over his shoulder, but he nodded as Jared walked up to stand beside him. "Ready."

Inside the cell, Jeff chuckled, and Jared looked over to where he was leaning against the bars, seemingly relaxed even when faced with as people who were literally out for his blood.

"Wow," he drawled, teeth bared in an easy smile. "Look at the two of you."

"Shut up," Jared said, not wanting to hear whatever Jeff had to say. He moved to retrieve the swab and the blade from the table but kept talking just to counteract the quietness, "You're not Jeff right now. I don't know what infected you but we're going to figure it out and we're going to stop it."

"You?" Jeff arched an eyebrow. "You going to charge in and save the day, Junior?" His gaze shifted from Jared to Jensen as he mocked, "An abandoned mongrel and a scared little pup. Yeah, I'm quaking in my boots here."

"Shut up," Jared said again, more forcefully this time after seeing Jensen's gaze drop to the floor in shame. 

Unsurprisingly, Jeff didn't heed his command. "Gee, did I hit a nerve there?"

Jared opted not to answer in favor of loading the paralytic capsules into the gun - he didn't trust his aim with just the dart - and he tried not to listen when Jeff took his silence as an invitation to continue, "Come on, Junior. I know you've made progress over the years but let's face it, you're still that stray that I picked up on Misos because no-one else wanted you. The Cyanids wiped out your whole town but didn't think it was worth the effort to put you out of your misery too." 

His words stung, and Jared's hands trembled as he loaded the last capsule and clicked the pieces of the gun back into place.

"You're worthless," Jeff hissed, smiling cruelly through every insult. "You're rash and impulsive and messy, and I should've left you on your own planet to rot. Hell, I should've put you down like a dog when I first found you-"

"Shut up!"

Raising the gun with a shout, Jared fired two paralytic capsules into Jeff's torso as anger burned through him. 

That anger morphed quickly into satisfaction when he watched Jeff stumbled backwards under the force of the impact. The capsules didn't cause much physical damage, save for rendering the target immobile and unconscious for a short period, but even though he knew Jeff would never treat him like that, it was still cathartic to see his current opponent struggle to keep his balance before dropping heavily to the ground, temporarily incapacitated.

Jared had to remind himself to breathe, and he tried to get his racing heart to slow down as he held the gun in one hand and passed Jensen the blade and the swab with the other. 

"This is a two-man job," he said shortly, still feeling the sting of Jeff's words. "I need you to cut him and take a sample, and I'll make sure he stays down."

Jensen took the small knife and the swab without complaint, but he evidently shared Jared's nerves as they both edged closer to the cell where Jeff lay unconscious. 

Keeping the gun trained on his chest, Jared stepped in front of Jensen and reached through the bars to grab Jeff's arm and pull his body closer. Jeff didn't stir but Jared kept his movements quick and cautious anyway as he reached in to check his eyes. 

They were dull and unfocused with no signs of consciousness and so he gestured for Jensen to come closer and to get the necessary blood sample from Jeff's outstretched arm. He heard the squeak of boots and the rustle of clothing as Jensen crouched next to him, and he offered the whispered advice, "Don't let his blood get on you."

Jensen nodded, and Jared held the gun steady as he looked more closely at Jeff's eyes. They remained lifeless but Jared frowned when he saw that the blood-red circle around his irises was starting to get bigger, bleeding outward into the whites of his eyes just like he had seen in the other creature which had climbed onto the hull of the ship. Filing the information away as something to be considered regarding the progress of the infection, Jared looked into Jeff's eyes and tried to work out how far the redness had already spread. 

However, his own eyes widened in shock when he realized that Jeff was looking back up at him.

Panicked, Jared barely had time to let out a warning cry as the situation exploded in a blur of movement. 

Jared scrambled backward, raising the gun with one hand and reaching out to pull Jensen out of harm's way with the other, but he was left grasping at thin air when Jensen was jerked out of his grip. The knife and the swab fell to the floor and Jared looked up to see that Jensen had been pinned against the bars with Jeff's bloodied hand wrapped tightly around his throat.

"Jared-"

Jensen's cry was choked off as Jeff squeezed tighter and Jared halted mid-stride when he growled, "Take another step and I snap his neck."

With Jensen's body blocking Jeff's, Jared couldn't get off a shot with either the useless paralytic or the blaster strapped to his thigh, and he raised his hands in surrender as Jensen struggled for air. 

"I'm not coming any closer. Just let him go."

The bars weren't wide enough for Jeff to fit his jaws through but any relief Jared felt at his inability to bite Jensen was canceled out by the hand around Jensen's throat and the way Jeff smiled darkly at him through the bars.   
"Well, look at that, Jared. Your pup's as pathetic as you are. Guess I'm not the only one who picks up retarded strays."

Jensen struggled and clutched at Jeff's hand, and Jared's eyes darted between the two of them as he repeated, "Let him go. You can have me instead-"

He stopped when Jeff laughed, reaching up to run a possessive hand through Jensen's hair. "Now why would I want an unruly mutt like you when this one's already trained up for me?" He stroked his hand along Jensen's cheek and brushed his thumb over Jensen's lips as he asked mockingly, "You're going to be good for me, aren't you, pup?"

"Stop it," Jared said, taking an instinctive step forward. "Leave him alone."

Jeff ran his tongue over his extended teeth and ignored Jared's complaints. "Come on now, Junior, I'm just working with what you told me. He was kept in the stables, he ate his master's leftovers, he was beaten when he was a bad boy, and he even has this helpful little collar." His lips curved up in a lascivious grin. "Not to mention how eager he was to get a treat last night..."

"Fuck you," Jared spat but froze in place when Jeff cut off Jensen's air once again, leaving him struggling helplessly to breathe. "Please. Jeff, if you're in there, please let him go."

He saw Jeff's grip loosen a little to let Jensen pull in a breath, but he kept up the quiet pleas as he edged closer, "C'mon, man. I know whatever infected you is strong but you're better than this." He lowered his gun and met Jeff's eyes. "Please, Jeff." He kept his expression as earnest as he could as he murmured, "I believe in you."

The sentiment was cheesy and clichéd and Jared struck as soon as Jeff rolled his eyes.

Pulling the blade from his belt, he sliced into the arm that was holding Jensen against the bars and made a fresh grab for him when Jeff roared in pain. Jensen all but collapsed against him and Jared stumbled backward as Jeff lunged for him through the bars.

He came up short, and Jared let himself sink to the ground in relief once they were both out of Jeff's reach. Beside him, Jensen gasped for breath, still trying to get air into his lungs again, and Jared knelt up to check him over with light but worried touches. "Jensen? You with me?"

Jensen managed a weak nod between coughs but Jared's own breath caught in his throat when he tilted Jensen's chin up to see Jeff's fingerprints scattered across his neck, bloody smudges on bare skin. His stomach rolled with terror but he tried to appear as confident as possible when Jensen looked to him for instructions.

Plastering on a smile to mask his fear that Jensen would be the next one to get infected, he said with fake enthusiasm, "All right, let's go see what Jeff's got in his blood."

 

****

+++

"Vampyra?"

Jensen's brow creased as he sounded the word out and Jared shrugged, scanning over the rest of the information provided by the ship's computer.

"Your guess is as good as mine, dude," he said. "I don't know how to pronounce it but I'm guessing that's where the vampire stories came from."

Settled on the chair next to him, Jensen looked at the pictures that flew past on the screen. "What are they?"

"They're a different species," Jared explained, trying to process and then reword the information so it was as understandable as possible. Pointing to a picture of a large, fanged monster, he said, "See that? That's a pure-blood vampyra."

Jensen's lips parted in astonishment. "Is that what's happening to Jeff? Is he turning into that?"

Jared shook his head. "No. I don't think it works like that." He tucked his legs underneath his body and pulled up a blank screen so that he could draw a diagram, still glancing up at the information for reference. "It starts out with a pure-blood vampyra, which looks like the creature in that picture. According to the database, the pure-bloods can't go out in the sunlight and they survive by draining the blood of human corpses."

Jensen grimaced and Jared drew a quick sketch of what was supposed to be a vampyra but looked more like a large toothy blob with flailing arms.

"Then sometimes a vampyra bites a human but doesn't kill them," he said. "There's some kind of virus in their bite which mutates when inside a human body and turns people into..." He squinted at the screen and then shrugged. "They don't have an actual name for it but I'm guessing we can call them vampires."

"Like Jeff?" Jensen asked.

"Yeah, like Jeff." Jared scrubbed a hand across his face and then read aloud from the computer, "When humans are bitten, the transformation will include extended fangs, increased strength, increased speed, personality changes, and blood-red eyes." He looked back at Jensen and explained, "Jeff's fangs came in pretty quick but his eyes are changing more slowly."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't really know yet," Jared admitted. "It's something though, right?"

Going back to his diagram, Jared drew some fanged stick-figures beneath the toothy blob and said, "So the vampyra bites a human who turns into a vampire, and then that vampire bites more humans who become vampires too." He added an arrow to the diagram to show the progression of vampirism, and drew a beard and a sad face on the last stick-figure in line. "And then one of the vampires bites Jeff, which gives us this."

He looked over to where Jeff was sitting on the floor of his cell and saying something that was inaudible beyond the soundpod which Jared had set up. (He figured he and Jensen had been compared to dogs enough times for one day.)

"Is there a way to reverse it?" Jensen asked, and Jared nodded, flicking back to the relevant information on the computer.

"Yeah. It's a central-control kind of virus - if we kill the vampyra that originally infected the humans, all the vampires should change back again." 

He looked down at his drawing and tapped the sketch of the vampyra. "The problem is that we don't know how many of them there are. There could just be one pure-blood vampyra who infected part of the colony, or there could be hundreds of these things waiting beyond that wall. And that's not even counting the danger of getting bitten by a regular vampire on the way."

"But we try, right?" Jensen said nervously. "We're going to try to save him?"

"I don't have a choice," Jared answered honestly. "I'll 'port into the colony and try to take out the vampyra that infected Jeff by proxy. You don't need to come with me - you can stay here and keep watch over Jeff and the ship. I don't want to put you in any more danger."

"I'll come," Jensen said, sounding adamant. "I- You should have help."

"Jensen, I don't-"

"I'll come," he repeated. "What do we do? How do we kill one of the original vampyra?"

The change of subject was blunt but Jared went with it, not wanting to pressure Jensen into a decision one way or the other.

"Beheading," he said with a grim smile. "One good strike and this will be over."

Giving him a small nod, Jensen got to his feet, and Jared watched with a mix of pride and affection as he walked over to retrieve his blade. Jared followed him a moment later, tucking a smaller knife into his belt and grabbing his longer blade as he led Jensen over to the 'port dock and directed the 'port inside the colony.

Jensen moved in close and Jared rested his free hand on his hip as he asked, "You ready?"

Jensen's face was pale when he looked up at him, but Jared smiled when Jensen mirrored his gesture and rested his hand on Jared's hip in return. The 'port dock whirred into action around them, and Jared closed his eyes to let the teleport carry them away as Jensen said in reply, "Ready."

+++

  
As far as teleporting into a colony full of vampires went, Jared figured it could've been worse.

Breathing hard, he wiped the blood off his blade as he looked at the bodies strewn around them. Thanks to his less-than-stellar planning, he and Jensen had not only managed to land in some kind of tunnel where a group of vampires had congregated, but they'd actually managed to land on top of said vampires. Since they'd figured out a way to reverse the vampirism, Jared had tried to knock the creatures out instead of killing them but blood still stained the blade and the walls from where decapitation had been the only option.

Checking that everything was still attached to his belt, Jared slid the weapon into its sheath against his thigh and wiped his hand across his forehead before turning around to where Jensen was pressed back against the wall, an unused blade in his hand and an unconscious vampire at his feet.

"Hey, you okay?" Jared asked, stepping over the body to curl his hand around Jensen's wrist and coax his weapon down. "Jensen? Are you hurt?"

Jensen's eyes were wide when he looked up but he didn't loosen his grip on his blade as he stammered, "I- I'm okay." He swallowed and looked past Jared at the tunnel around them. "Where are we?"

Taking in his surroundings, Jared tried to piece things together to work out where they were. The tunnel was reasonably large - large enough for Jared to stand up comfortably - but it was warm enough that he guessed they were probably above ground, most likely in one of the enclosed tunnels used to move between different sections of the colony. It was dark, with pale green back-up lights running along the side of the tunnel, and Jared guessed the vampires had disabled the colony's main power supply already.

"We're in one of the connecting tunnels," he said, glancing around and feeling warmer at being trapped in the confinement of the tunnel. "I set the 'port to take us somewhere close to the original vampyra so we can't be that far away from the action."

He looked up and down the tunnel, seeing nothing but shadows and green light, as Jensen asked, "Which way do we go?"

Turning to his right, Jared made a decision. "The vampires were coming from this direction, right? They didn't look like they'd fed yet so I'm guessing they were leaving the vampyra instead of going back to it." At his feet, one of the unconscious vampires started to stir, and Jared reached out to rest a hand on Jensen's shoulder. "C'mon, we should get out of here before they wake up."

Jensen flinched away from his touch, face going pale as he stumbled back against the wall, and Jared sighed. Irritation started to bubble up at Jensen's constant fear of the slightest movement and he tried to keep his frustration out of his voice as he asked, "What? What's the problem?"

Jensen looked even more scared at his raised voice but he answered anyway, eyes fixed on Jared's hand, "You're bleeding."

Jared followed Jensen's gaze to his hand and frowned at the sight of the long cut stretching down the length of his index finger. He curled and straightened it, attributing the lack of pain to adrenaline as the blood dripped down in thick, red drops. "Guess I caught it in the fight."

Jensen shook his head and raised his blade, still looking terrified. "The vampires didn't have weapons. They only had their teeth."

Jared raised his eyebrows as the frustration heated up to anger. "So what, you think I'm a vampire now? Because I have a cut on my finger, you think I got bit and turned into a vampire in the last twenty seconds?" He moved in, crowding Jensen against the wall and pushing his blade back out of the way. "Are you that fucking stupid?!"

"Jared-"

Jensen's words came out as little more than a plea and Jared halted, blinking away the blurriness in his vision until he could get a better look at the fear in Jensen's eyes. He could feel him breathing, their bodies pressed together against the wall, but Jared took a swift step back when his brain caught up enough to remember what he had just said.

"Oh, God..."

Jensen cringed back, and Jared ran a hand through his hair, heart thumping as the realization hit him. "God, Jensen, I'm sorry. That- I didn't mean to say that. I-" He took a breath as he looked down at the bleeding cut on his finger. "I didn't mean it."

He ran his tongue over his teeth but was relieved to find that they were all the usual length. "Maybe I just got a weak dose of whatever's on their fangs?" he said hopefully. "Maybe my body can fight it off."

"What if you're just changing slower?" Jensen asked nervously, still not coming within arm's reach.

Jared's annoyance flared up again and he struggled to push it down as he realized that Jensen was probably right. "We need to move," he muttered, not trusting himself not to scare Jensen even more. "They're waking up and we don't wanna be here for that."

He moved in to shepherd Jensen forward but closed his outstretched hand into a fist when Jensen backed off, shaking his head. "I-"

"Fuck, Jensen," Jared snapped. "You don't have a fucking choice here! We stay here and you get eaten; we go back to the ship and you get eaten; or we keep moving and you pray we find the vampyra before I end up being the one who does the eating."

He felt hot and breathless, like he'd run the whole goddamn length of the colony, and he tried to cool down when he saw Jensen raise the blade higher. "Look, I'm sorry," he said again, more irritated than sincere. "Really, I am, but we need to go, Jensen. Now. Here, I'll even walk in front so you know I'm not gonna jump you from behind."

He took a few paces forward in demonstration and his anger faded a little when he looked back to see that Jensen had fallen into step behind him, fearful but obedient. 

The tunnel stretched out ahead of them, green light illuminating the way as they hurried onward and followed the winding path towards the unknown destination. Jared walked fast, too wired to go any slower, but he couldn't stop running his tongue over his teeth as he felt his canines start to sharpen into fangs. 

One by one, his senses intensified. The damp, musky smell of the tunnels was replaced by the scent of sulfur from the planet outside and the spilled blood from way back where the vampires had been killed. He could taste it on his tongue, metallic and rich, and it mixed with the tang of the sweat on Jensen's skin even though Jensen was six feet behind him. 

The sound of Jensen's footsteps was gradually overtaken by the noise of his heart beating in his chest, and it became even more of a struggle for Jared to keep his attention on the task at hand when he could hear Jensen's every breath and movement, down to the near-silence of his tongue darting out to lick his lips. 

With the temptation of Jensen's blood right behind him, it seemed like they had been walking for decades by the time Jared saw the light at the end of the tunnel as artificial green light started to give way to a harsh red glow. 

Jared felt strong and weak at the same time, fired up and full of energy but feverish and disoriented by his newly heightened senses, and when fresh noise filtered in, it took him a moment to process that it was getting louder and closer.

Whirling around, he let the disorientation slip away as he gave into the power coursing through his blood and grabbed Jensen roughly by his collar. Jensen opened his mouth to scream but Jared threw him back against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of him as he closed in and clamped a hand over his mouth. "Shut the fuck up."

Jensen's nostrils flared as he tried to breathe around Jared's hand. There was white all the way around the green of his eyes as he looked up at him in terror, and Jared found himself wondering whether his own eyes had started to bleed red like Jeff's. 

"Please-"

Jensen's words were muffled by his hand and Jared pressed his palm more firmly over his mouth, forcing his head back against the side of the tunnel as he listened to the approaching noise that rose up over the hammering of Jensen's heart. "I said shut the fuck up, Jensen."

He smiled, letting his new fangs make the point where his words couldn't, but Jensen's struggles only became more desperate when Jared flashed him a dark grin. He fought against him, trying to get his weapon high enough to be of any use, but Jared used his weight to pin him in place, all strength and muscle where Jensen was weak and lean. 

Jensen sobbed, blade clattering uselessly against the wall next to him, and he cried out into the hand covering his mouth when Jared pulled his head to the side to gain access to the soft curve of his neck. 

He could feel the blood rushing along underneath Jensen's skin, hot and satisfying, and he licked along his throat, unable to keep his mouth away for a second longer. Jensen's pulse was racing, practically a terrified vibration against Jared's tongue, and he buried his face against his neck to take a long, slow inhale of the scent of fearful panic.

"Shhh," he murmured, kissing along Jensen's neck and tasting the sweat pooling in the dip of his collarbone. "Be good."

Jensen cried out again but went quiet a second later as the pounding noise in Jared's ears got louder. The tunnel reverberated with the sound of footsteps and Jared didn't look up as another group of vampires ran past them. He caught their murmured comments easily - _wasting time_ , _need to get more bodies_ , _no meat on that one_ , _pretty little thing_ \- but he latched onto Jensen's neck and didn't even think about lifting his lips away until the thump-thump-thump of their footsteps faded away as they jogged down the tunnel.

However, even when Jensen's frightened breathing was the loudest sound in the tunnel, it still wasn't that easy for Jared to let him go. 

He was trapped and vulnerable in his arms, his exposed, collared neck offered up for Jared to bite, and Jared licked over the skin again, lost in thoughts of how good Jensen would taste. His fangs rested against the skin, pressing in but not breaking through, and as Jensen froze in his arms, Jared screwed his eyes shut and fought to block out the idea of that perfect blood spilling out over warm skin and flowing into his waiting mouth.

He wrenched himself away with a groan, turning to run his hands through his hair in frustration as Jensen collapsed against the wall, shaken but alive. He heard Jensen put his hand to his neck, feeling around to find the wound that Jared hadn't left, and he looked back at him as he said gruffly, "I didn't bite. Just wanted them to think I had."

Relief blossomed on Jensen's face. "You're still you?"

Jared bared his fangs again in an empty smile. "Not exactly. But I'm not one of them yet either." The distance between them was enough that his pressing hunger faded, making it a little easier to think straight. "I'm changing quick, Jensen. I- I can smell you. I can hear your blood and your heartbeat, and I just want to-"

He cut himself off when he saw Jensen going pale, and he changed tack. "Look, I don't wanna hurt you but soon I'm not gonna have a choice. We need to get in there and kill the vampyra before that happens." Jensen looked like he was about to speak but Jared stepped forward before either of them could second-guess themselves. "C'mon, let's move."

Jensen didn't protest and Jared found himself not caring whether his obedience was down to fear or agreement just as long as Jensen was close beside him as they moved towards the bright red light. 

The tunnel widened as they got closer to the exit, and Jared kept close to the wall when new noise reached his ears, a burble of voices overlaid with the beat of dozens of footsteps and a wet, sloppy sound that Jared didn't recognize.

He blinked against the light as they edged out into a larger hall but tugged Jensen quickly back into the shadows when he saw more vampires emerge from other tunnels that led into the same room. There were dozens of exits, all arranged in a half-circle around the curved wall, and opposite them, an intricate archway led through to a massive stone chamber. 

Carved seats rose up on either side of the room, giving the impression that it had been home to some kind of council or assembly before the vampyra arrived, but the floors and seats were now stained with splatters of blood as vampires hurried in and out. Craning his neck to peer out of the shadows and into the chamber, Jared licked his lips at the scent of all that blood and tried to look past the crowd of worshipping vampires to find the vampyra.

It wasn't hard to spot.

Whereas the vampires looked like regular people - Jared himself was proof of that - the vampyra looked anything but. It was a distortion of a human, taller and paler than any person could be, with too-long limbs that seemed to move bonelessly even as they supported the creature's weight. Its skin looked raw, an exposed, sickly kind of pale in the red glare of the back-up lights, and Jared's lips parted in a mixture of human horror and vampiric pleasure as the vampyra leaned down to feed.

Its victim was already dead, lying lifeless and still at what passed for the vampyra's feet, but that didn't seem to be a problem for the creature. Its mouth gaped open, revealing a two rows of blood-red fangs stretching across its face, and it raised its hands high enough that Jared could see it had more sharp teeth instead of fingers, its arms acting like secondary throats for the mouth-like claws at its wrists. 

He watched in astonishment as it crouched over the body, tearing the throat out with its mouth and then quickly and efficiently stripping the flesh from the bones with the teeth where its fingers should have been. Skin was pulled from muscle, muscle from bone, and bone from the skeleton as the vampyra consumed every last drop of blood with the same wet noises Jared had heard in the tunnel. Its mouth and hands were red and dripping when it stepped back, and Jared could just see its skin flush a darker shade of red as blood coursed through it before the creature lunged again at the next corpse that was laid in front of it.

The pictures in the database hadn't done it justice and Jared felt a disgusting rush of excitement at the sight of the thing responsible for the way he was changing.

His hand slid up to Jensen's neck, palm resting over his pulse, and he shifted his attention away from the vampyra to the vampires who were emerging from the tunnels in a slow trickle. 

Instead of walking through the main entrance, however, they walked around the side of the main chamber in a steady procession, and Jared frowned when he saw the bodies they were dragging along with them. 

None of them seemed to be fresh but instead looked dirty and decayed, as though they had been dragged from their graves by the vampires. Some kills seemed fresher, with their bodies ripped open and their wounds still bleeding, but either way, it was clear that the vampyra was consuming dead victims rather than alive ones.

"The collars..."

Distracted, Jared only just heard Jensen's whisper above the thuds of the vampires' feet and the dragging scrapes of the bodies being pulled along behind them. "What?"

"They're wearing collars," Jensen said nervously, keeping his voice as low as possible. "The bodies..."

Jared looked again, now picking up the metallic clanking of the collars against the floor. They hung around the necks of the less-fresh corpses, thick and silver and identical to the ones they'd seen on the statues lining the front wall of the colony. 

The pieces clicked into place in the part of Jared's mind that wasn't encouraging him to tear Jensen's throat out, and he murmured, "They're not slaves."

"Then what-"

Jensen's voice was too loud - _too shrill, too needy, too fucking irritating_ \- for Jared to deal with and he clapped a hand over his mouth with a growl. "It's a death ritual," he whispered, enjoying the way Jensen shivered against him and the way his blade clattered to the ground. "On my planet we used to put coins in people's mouths but different worlds do different things and fuck, you're just begging to be bitten, aren't you?"

The words came out before Jared could stop them but Jensen's muffled cry was enough to make him back off for a few more seconds. 

He dropped his hand back to his side and bounced from foot to foot, feeling the blade bump against his leg where it hung down from his belt. The energy that filled him was alien and exhilarating, and if he couldn't expend it by sinking his teeth into Jensen, he knew he had to find some other method of release.

"Let's go," he ordered, drawing the blade out with a flourish and imagining the delicious spray of blood if he sliced Jensen's head off with it. "Full on charge. No mercy, no survivors. Let's get in there and cut that motherfucker to pieces."

He strode forward but Jensen's hand closed around his arm before he could make it out of the cover of the tunnel.

Anger ignited inside him in response and he lashed out, sending Jensen flying back against the tunnel wall where he doubled over, an arm curled protectively across his stomach. Blade in hand, Jared advanced on him but halted when Jensen cowered back and stammered, "They- It could be a trap. No-one else is going in the main door - they might have rigged something up." Jared ran his teeth over his fangs and Jensen swallowed hard. "P-Please, don't-"

"Where the fuck are you getting this from?" Jared cut in, now less annoyed by Jensen's interruption than by the fact that he actually had a point. "You don't know what the goddamn UPB is, but you know about traps to stop intruders? What the fuck?"

He loomed over him, weapon and teeth bared and ready, and Jensen backed up further as he stumbled over his answer. "I traveled with an army. It- My first master, before Lord Somerville, he was a general and he- I heard him talking."

"While you were sucking his dick, I bet," Jared said with a sneer. 

Jensen's cheeks flushed in humiliation and Jared was almost grateful for the pang of guilt that hit him, providing a lingering reminder that he was still human on some level. 

"Shit, I'm sorry," he said quickly. "Jensen, I can't control this much longer."

He backed off to let Jensen pull himself to his feet but spun back around to face him when Jensen asked, "You said the collars get put on dead bodies?"

Jared nodded and Jensen looked down, voice barely above a whisper as he said, "Then maybe I could pretend to be one of them?"

Jared barely held back a laugh. "You're gonna go undercover as a corpse? That's your genius plan? Wow, I know Somerville said you were stupid but-"

"It might work," Jensen said, and even though Jared couldn't control the words coming out of his mouth anymore, somewhere in the back of his mind there was a tiny spark of pride that Jensen was standing up to him to make his point. "I don't know how else we can get in without getting caught or turning into one of them."

"You're never gonna pass for a corpse," Jared said, harsher than he intended. "The vampyra may like dead bodies but I want something fresher, and trust me, Jensen, you're as fresh as they come."

"I can pretend," Jensen pleaded. "I know you have great hearing but with all the noise in there, they might not notice that I'm not dead."

Jared shook his head, partly amused but mostly just fucking hungry. "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard, and after years with Jeff, that's saying something."

Jensen's hands were shaking as he gripped his blade but he tilted his chin up in rash defiance anyway. "I don't see you coming up with anything better."

Jared moved faster than he ever thought he could, and Jensen's back collided with the wall of the tunnel once again as Jared grabbed him by the throat and shook him roughly. "Don't fucking push me, Jensen."

"I'm sorry," Jensen gasped, struggling to breathe around Jared's grip even as his body went strangely still. "But I'm gonna die anyway." He met his eyes. "I want it to be at their hands instead of yours." 

Jensen swung his arm up with a sudden flash of movement. The hilt of his blade slammed into Jared's temple and Jared didn't have time to say anything else before the world dropped away.

+++

  
Jared woke up to the sound of limbs being pulled from a body.

The still-human part of him seemed to get it together before the vampiric infection, and his eyes flew open to check that the body wasn't Jensen's.

He relaxed almost instantly when he saw the corpse in question. It was a man, collared and dark-haired, but that was as far as the similarities went between the victim and Jensen. The body had been dead for days, its flesh rotten and falling off easily into the mouth-like hands of the vampyra as it consumed every ounce of meat and gristle and blood from the decaying limbs. 

The vampyra looked even more repellent up close, its pale skin infused with stolen blood and its reddened eyes and teeth standing out in a freakish inversion of human normality. Even its movements were just inhuman enough to be unsettling and Jared fought back his nausea at the thick, gulping sounds that came from the creature's throat and from the claw-like mouths on the ends of its wrists as it finished off the last of its meal.

Pulling himself up to a sitting position, he tore his eyes away from the gruesome spectacle as he tried to work out how he had managed to move from the safety of the tunnel to the dangerous proximity of his current position in the council chamber while he'd been unconscious.

He got his answer in the form of a slap to the back of his head and he looked up to see another vampire standing over him with an amused smile on her face. 

"Here." 

She tossed a freshly severed arm at him and the vampire part of Jared’s mind spurred his body into action in time to catch it before any blood could be wasted. 

"You passed out," she explained, as though Jared had forgotten about Jensen slamming a goddamn weapon against his head. "Drink up. You need to be healthy to go out to get more tributes."

From the wave of her hand towards the vampyra and its victim, Jared guessed 'tributes' was some kind of vampire code for 'dead bodies dragged out of their graves' but he nodded in obedience before the female vampire walked away. 

His body moved on autopilot and before Jared realized what was happening, his mouth was pressed to one end of the bloodied stump of an arm and the still-hot blood was running down his throat. It tasted amazing - better than sex, better than air, better than any other kind of food that he could remember - and Jared drank it down as quickly as he could, feeling stronger and sharper with each swallow.

He closed his eyes, losing himself in the bliss of the blood, but he listened to the rustle-and-thump noise as the vampire who had spoken to him a moment earlier sank to her knees in front of the vampyra and said, "We're running out of humans, Sir. They know we can't enter so they've barricaded themselves inside their houses."

Letting the drained arm fall to the ground, Jared frowned at this new piece of information but his expression morphed into a grimace when he heard the vampyra's reply. Its voice was as unnerving as its appearance, low words spoken over the burble of blood in its throat as it growled, "Burn them down."

The female vampire didn't flinch, just rose smoothly to her feet to walk out, and Jared watched the vampyra turn back to the piles of bodies behind it. It snapped its teeth together impatiently but smiled when another corpse was dragged out of the bloody heap for it to eat. 

Jared heard the noises start up again, all wet slurps and thick gulps, but he couldn't take his eyes off the pile of corpses when a familiar face came into view.

Jensen looked dead. 

Blood was smeared across his face and neck, and he looked pale and gaunt enough that it was easy to believe he'd been dead for days. He was slumped on the floor, heaped in with the rest of the collared corpses, and with his eyes shut and his body still, Jared found himself straining to hear Jensen's heartbeat to work out whether he was actually alive.

He was almost surprised by his own relief when he heard it, and he focused in even more closely until he could see the barely visible rise and fall of Jensen's chest and the way his eyelids fluttered at the loud noises in the chamber. 

Jensen was alive, Jared's blade was at his side, and the opportunity was there for the taking, but somehow Jared couldn't bring himself to go to help him. The blood was hot and sweet inside him, creeping through his whole body and leaving him craving more, and as Jensen's quiet little heartbeat thump-thump-thumped away, Jared's thoughts drifted to food rather than assistance.

Even pushing himself to his feet was enough to make him feel larger and stronger now that the borrowed blood and the vampiric virus were coursing through his veins, and he relished the weight of the blade against his leg as he sauntered towards the pile of corpses. 

It played out in his mind, as real as if he were living it. Jensen wouldn't see him coming, too busy playing dead to notice the real threat, and by the time Jared had his hand around his neck, he would have nowhere to run to. He wouldn't even have chance to scream; those pretty green eyes would go wide, like he didn't believe this was happening to him, but he wouldn't make a sound until Jared's fangs sank into his neck.

Caught up in the fantasy, Jared came to a halt when he saw that Jensen was already being moved.

One vampire grabbed his upper body and another caught his feet, and they hauled him across to where the vampyra was finishing off its latest victim. Jared wasn't sure whether he was staying still to avoid eating Jensen or to give Jensen the best possible shot at taking the vampyra by surprise but either way he managed to stay rooted to the spot, watching the way Jensen's limbs stayed limp and the way his collar hung neatly around his neck.

The vampires stopped in front of their master, and Jared looked on passively as Jensen was dropped to the ground like the corpse that he was pretending to be.

The thud of him falling was loud enough that Jared wondered for a second if he'd cracked his ribs against the blood-stained floor before his heightened senses caught up to him with the reminder that the sound of Jensen's ribs cracking would have been much louder.

Trying to ignore the urge to find out exactly what Jensen's bones sounded like when they were breaking, Jared took a step closer and watched with sick fascination as the vampyra leaned over Jensen, inhaling his scent while it finished swallowing the last few gulps of the previous body. Its arms reached down, the finger-teeth tracing their way up Jensen's legs without breaking the skin, but it paused before it could lower its head down to feast.

The creature's skin became reddened with the blood of its prior meal as it shifted its gaze to the side, and Jared's head snapped up at the burst of movement in the doorway of the chamber.

His eyes went wide when a second vampyra came slithering through.

Dozens of thoughts ricocheted around in his head, some of which he recognized as his own - _fuck, fuck, fuck, should've known, maybe there's more, need Jeff, need help, Jensen's gonna die_ \- and others that were as alien and invasive as the infection flowing through him - _we can take the colony, more death, more bodies, more blood, blood, blood, Jensen's gonna die and I'm gonna watch_.

The second creature came closer with the strange, boneless movements of its quasi-human body. Its hands and mouth were just as stained as its partner's but the thin membrane of its skin was paler, like it needed more blood to make it flushed and darker again. Its eyes fixed on Jensen, and as it moved to stand beside its kin, the first vampyra opened its jaws to eat.

"No!"

The shout left Jared's mouth before he could stop it. He couldn't even say who it was aimed at, whether it was a warning to Jensen or a warning to the creatures, but by the time he'd made up his mind, it was already too late. 

Jensen's eyes flew open but Jared was willing to bet he didn't see anything but his target as he pulled the blade from his belt and jumped to his feet. He looked alive again, a blood-smeared corpse risen from the dead, and it was the pulse of hunger rather than humanity that caused Jared to step forward.

Jensen didn't hesitate. His blade cut through the air before Jared could reach out to catch it and Jared's mouth fell open when it continued in a smooth arc to slice cleanly through the vampyra's neck.

Jared hadn't known it was possible but a vampyra was even more gruesome when it was dying.

Distracted by its kin and by Jared's shout, its neck was exposed and vulnerable to the blow, and Jared watched in horror as it turned its face towards Jensen, separating its head from its body as it did so. Everyone in the room turned to watch as both its head and body dropped to the floor, and the gush of the blood pouring out seemed loud in the stunned silence that followed. 

The vampyra's body disintegrated before his eyes as all the blood inside the sickly-pale skin-sack spilled out onto the floor, wave after wave of blood and semi-digested flesh coating the stone and lapping against Jensen's feet. The skin and teeth and eyes dissolved into the mess, thinning out and breaking down until they were lost in the pool of stolen blood which was now the only trace of the vampyra's existence.

Jared's gaze shifted away to travel up Jensen's bloodied legs. He looked fucking pathetic, with the blade gripped tightly in both hands and fearful tremors running through him, and Jared found himself stalking forward through the blood, enraged that someone as weak and insignificant as Jensen had managed to kill a creature as old and powerful as this one. 

He saw Jensen's eyes go wide when he got closer and he bared his fangs as Jensen stumbled backwards, pleading, "Jared, no, please-"

Jared reached out, hands itching to wrap around Jensen's neck and choke the pleas right out of him, but he was knocked to the side before he could lay so much as a finger on him. 

He hit the ground to the noise of the furious screams of the surviving vampyra and he looked up in time to see it launch itself at Jensen.

Jensen's own cry barely registered over the noise of the creature's bellow but his weak shout was cut off when the vampyra caught the front of his shirt and hurled him back to the edge of the chamber. His body collided hard with the stone wall and his weapon clattered to the ground, and Jared couldn't help listening to the little voice whispering _prey, prey, prey_ as he drew closer. 

The vampyra got there first and Jared pushed to the front of the crowd of watching vampires in time to see it roar in wordless anger as it trapped Jensen up against the wall.

Jensen cried out, cringing back as though he had somewhere to hide, and Jared licked his lips at the sound of his heartbeat getting faster and faster and faster. He laughed when Jensen tried to lash out, his weak punch glancing off the vampyra's shoulder, and that laughter was shared by the rest of the vampires around him when the vampyra dug the teeth at its wrists deep into Jensen's forearms to pin him against the wall.

Jensen screamed, fighting to pull away and then fighting to stay still when the vampyra's fangs tore his flesh even more with every movement, but Jared's hunger only intensified at the weak pleas that escaped him as the creature leaned in close. 

"Please..." Jensen begged, and Jared tilted his head in surprise when he saw that Jensen was looking past the vampyra and directly at him. "Jared, help-"

His words ended on a choked gasp when the vampyra lunged in for the kill.

A cheer rose up from the crowd but it sounded like little more than a whisper under the fear-quick beat of Jensen's heart in Jared's ears. He was beautiful and biteable up against the wall, head back, eyes closed and lips parted in a silent cry as the vampyra sank its teeth into his neck, and Jared's chest tightened with want when he smelled the hot, fresh scent of Jensen's blood spilling out down his throat.

Somewhere at the back of his mind, a voice reminded him that he should be trying to stop Jensen from bleeding rather than trying to claim the flowing blood for himself, and Jared's hand instinctively dropped down to the hilt of his blade when he stepped out from the crowd. 

The vampyra didn't look up as he approached, too fixated on draining Jensen dry, but Jensen's eyes opened when Jared was almost close enough to touch him. He looked dazed, like he'd gone past the pain and was on the brink of drifting away into death, but his eyes locked on Jared's and that was enough.

Jared was pretty sure his reasoning was more based on his own selfishness than Jensen's survival but whatever the motivation, he found himself reaching out to grab the back of the vampyra's neck and haul it backwards with a violent tug, ripping its fangs out of Jensen's neck and its teeth out of his arms. 

His attention lapsed a second later at the sight of Jensen collapsing against the wall, half-conscious and bleeding and so damn tempting, but the thready sound of Jensen's pulse was replaced by a clattering pain in his head as the vampyra charged him, throwing him back into the crowd with a bellow of rage. It knocked Jensen down in one easy strike and, just like its predecessor, it loomed over him as it opened its jaws to finish him off.

The strike ignited a flash of a memory, and Jared hesitated as his mind merged the vampyra's violence with that of Lord Somerville when he too had smacked Jensen to the floor at his house in Byton.

The memory was followed by a familiar rush of protectiveness that overwhelmed his hunger, and Jared let that carry him as he adjusted his grip on the weapon and strode forward. The noise went away; all the sounds of shouts and footsteps and heartbeats faded out into nothingness as Jared walked up to Jensen and brought his blade down.

The effect was instantaneous, and Jared felt dizziness sweep through him before the vampyra's head even hit the ground. 

Its death was the same as the first of its kind - same outpouring, same disintegrating skin, same bloodied mess of an existence - but this time Jared could feel every atom of it. It felt like his body was collapsing, his strength draining away, and his heightened abilities fading out while blood poured from the headless corpse of the vampyra, and from the cries around him, Jared guessed he wasn't the only one who was hurting. 

He dropped to his knees, clenching his teeth against the agony of the vampiric virus uncoiling itself from his body and melting away, and he gasped helplessly for air as his body was forced back under his own control. He closed his eyes tight, as though that would stop it, and he let himself get lost in the blackness rather than in the white-hot pain that was tearing through him.

When he opened his eyes again, he knew he'd passed out but judging by the chaos around him, he figured he couldn't have been down for more than a few moments. People were crying and vomiting and screaming and fleeing, and while Jared's stomach rolled at the memory of chowing down on a human arm, he had more pressing matters at hand.

"Jensen?"

Pushing himself up, he crawled over to where Jensen was lying on the floor, unmoving. His pants and boots were soaked in the vampyra's blood but Jensen's own blood still dripped from his arms and his neck as Jared asked again, worried, "Jensen? Can you hear me?"

Jensen cracked his eyes open and Jared's shoulders sagged in relief when he murmured weakly, "J'red?"

"Yeah," he said with a smile, running his hand over Jensen's arms to make sure the bleeding wasn't too severe. "It's me. It's over."

Jensen’s brow creased and his eyes stayed unfocused and heavy-lidded. "Over?"

"Yeah," Jared said again, pressing his hand to the wound on Jensen's neck. "Both the vampyra are dead and everyone's back to normal again." He ran his tongue over his teeth and then gave Jensen a smile when he found them all the same length. "See?" His smile became more genuine as he said honestly, "You were amazing, Jensen. Really amazing." 

Jensen's answering smile was almost non-existent. "I was stupid."

"You were awesome," Jared corrected firmly. 

His hand came away bloody from Jensen's neck and he helped him up to a sitting position so that he could reapply more pressure. Jensen leaned against him, injured and barely conscious, and Jared kissed his temple as he promised, "You're gonna be okay. We're gonna get you back to the ship and get you some food and rest and vitamins, and you'll be as good as new."

Jensen nodded but slumped against Jared's chest a second later, and Jared shook him awake quickly. "Hey, hey, stay with me, okay?" He pulled his Com off his belt and sighed in relief when he heard the beep that told him the 'port dock was still open. "I'll get you back as quick as I can."

Jensen's head came to rest against Jared's shoulder but any opinions Jared had on the intimacy of the situation were drowned out by worry when he felt the steady trickle of blood over his fingers from the bite on Jensen's neck. 

Jensen was pale from the blood loss, with bruises starting to blossom on his face and neck from where he'd been hit and grabbed, both by the vampyra and by Jared himself, and Jared cringed at the memory of the things he'd said to Jensen in the tunnels.

Feeling guiltier every second that he was sitting there with Jensen on the verge of passing out in his arms, he started to activate the 'port dock as he offered quiet reassurances, "We'll be out of here soon, man. We stopped the vampires and it sounds like most of the people in the colony are still alive - it's up to them how they handle the clean-up from here."

Jensen started to nod but then let his head loll forward against Jared's shoulder as he struggled to stay awake. Jared's heart clenched with worry and he pulled Jensen closer, smearing both their clothes with blood from the vampyra. "We're gonna take you someplace safe, okay? Someplace where there aren't any vampires or skoporas, and where me and Jeff can't put you in any more danger."

He felt Jensen grip his jacket tighter but only just caught his whispered reply, "M'okay."

"If this is okay, I never wanna see how you look when you're not okay," Jared teased before his tone became more serious. Reminded again of how bad Jensen's condition was, he used his free hand to wipe some of the blood off his face as he murmured, "God, look at you. I'm so sorry, Jensen - I should never have brought you here."

Jensen shook his head weakly. "Not your fault. I wanted..." 

He trailed off as he lost his battle with consciousness once again and buried his head in the crook of Jared's shoulder. 

Unsure whether he should be feeling better or worse after that response, Jared checked his Com one last time before activating the controls to take them back to the ship and to the de-vampirized Jeff. Jensen curled up closer as he did so, instinctively cuddling into him even though he was still out of it, and Jared wrapped his arms around him in a too-late attempt at protection. 

Closing his eyes as they were 'ported back to the ship, Jared reminded himself that it would be better for both of them if Jensen didn't stay.

+++

  
"You ate an arm?"

"No," Jared corrected, "I _drank_ an arm. There's a subtle but important difference."

"That difference ain't as important as you think it is, Junior," Jeff said with a grin. "You drank an _arm_?"

"Shut up." Scowling, Jared took a long gulp of whatever drink Jeff had concocted for him - it was green and smelled like ethanol and tulips - and tried to wash the lingering taste of blood out of his mouth. "You would've eaten way more than an arm if we hadn't stopped you. Quit judging my dietary habits from when I was infected by a bloodthirsty alien."

"Sorry," Jeff said, not sounding all that repentant. "It's just... An arm? Really?"

"Dude, if you mention the arm one more time, I'm gonna have to go throw up again," Jared warned. "I'm trying to repress here."

"Y'know, Sam and Misha'll probably have some therapeutic cure for that when we get to Hlax 2," Jeff said, sipping his own drink. "Arm-Eaters Anonymous or something."

Jared punched him on the arm but laughed in spite of himself. "Fuck you, asshole. You do not get to add this to your 'weird shit Jared did under alien influence' repertoire. Misha still makes fun of me for accidentally marrying a yak that one time."

Jeff's head fell back against the couch as he laughed and Jared shook his head with a scowl. "I hate you."

"Yeah, I know you do," Jeff said, unconcerned. He propped his feet up on the table but set his drink down as he turned to face Jared with a slightly more serious expression on his face. "So we should probably have that talk at some point."

"About the birds and the B53s?" He feigned shock. "Shit, have I been doing it wrong for the last eight years?"

Jeff's smile was more out of politeness than amusement and Jared settled back on the couch as Jeff said, "Not that talk, kid. I was thinking more along the lines of the 'I'm sorry I fucked up back there' talk."

"It wasn't your fault," Jared said instantly. "You got caught off-guard, man. It happens."

From the look on his face, Jared knew Jeff wasn't about to forgive himself that easily and he stayed quiet as he asked, "You know I didn't mean what I said to you, right? That shit about your family and your home, none of it was true. You can be annoying as fuck sometimes, especially when you steal my breakfast and try to fit your giant feet in my shoes, but I never _ever_ wished that I'd left you behind. You understand me?"

Actual displays of emotion from Jeff were as rare as goddamn unicorns and Jared convinced himself that he was only getting choked up because he was drunk and because he'd eaten an arm earlier that day. "I know, man." 

He tucked one leg underneath himself and admitted, "I'm not exactly blame-free either. I said some shitty things to Jensen when we were in the colony."

"Fuck." Jeff scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "I should go apologize to him too."

"Get in line," Jared said with a sad smile. "I already tried to say I was sorry but he was kind of out of it and kept insisting he was fine."

The noise of the shower went away, proving that Jensen was still conscious and able to shut the water off, and Jared strained to listen for his movements in the bathroom as Jeff commented, "Sounds like he held his own today."

Jared couldn't stop his grin from broadening. "He was awesome. Even with the whole knocking me out thing."

"You said he spent time with an army?" Jeff asked, uncertain, and Jared shook his head.

"Kinda. He said he was a slave for some general somewhere and that he got to listen in on military stuff, but I don't think he did any fighting. He managed to take out a vampyra today but from the way he moved, it didn't look like he'd been trained to fight." Jared swallowed down more questions about exactly what Jensen's life would've been like as a slave in a camp full of soldiers, and decided to focus on the positives instead. "We could do worse than keep him around, man. He's smart and he's brave and he's-"

"Traumatized," Jeff added pointedly. Jared's mouth snapped shut and Jeff sighed. "He's a good kid, Jared, but just because he held it together today doesn't mean that he's gonna be magically fixed from here on out. You said it yourself, he had it rough down on Byton and after what we both did to him today, he should be somewhere he can feel safe. Sam and Misha will take good care of him and we can always come back to visit."

Jared pursed his lips, feeling oddly disappointed even as he agreed, "You're right. I just- He did so well today, y'know? I don't want his reward to be getting dumped on Hlax 2 while we ride off without him."

Jeff eyed him carefully and Jared looked down at his (weirdly green) drink, not liking the scrutiny.

"It's up to him," Jeff said eventually. "If he wants to stay, he's welcome to, but I don't want you trying to persuade him into it. If he thinks that's what you want, he might do it just to keep you happy, and that's not the goal here. We take him to Hlax 2, we hand him over to Misha, and we make it as easy as possible for him to stay and build a new life there. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Jared said, more teasing than sarcastic.

Jeff elbowed him in the side. "Fucker. Go make sure Jensen didn't pass out again and let me finish my drink in peace."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n." He dodged another jab to his ribs and got to his feet, not really needing much incentive to spend more time looking after Jensen. 

Leaving his drink on the table, he wandered down to where the bathroom door was ajar and called to warn of his arrival, "Jensen? You okay in there?"

The door opened fully before Jared reached it and Jensen edged out, dressed and damp from the shower but looking thoroughly exhausted.

"Whoa." Hurrying forward, Jared put his arm around Jensen's back to help keep him upright and asked, worried, "You with me?"

Jensen nodded sleepily, head resting against Jared's shoulder, and Jared let him lean against him for support as he checked him over quickly. He'd given Jensen an energy booster to keep him awake while they'd tended to the wounds on his arms and neck and tried to stop the blood-loss, but evidently it hadn't lasted as long as he'd anticipated and Jared bit his lip at the thought of Jensen crashing out and not even calling for help.

"Hey," he said softly, half-leading, half-carrying Jensen down the hallway to his bedroom. "I got you, it's okay." Jensen's arms were bare and Jared's gaze caught the thick white bandages wrapped around his forearms as he asked, chiding, "Why didn't you call me when the shot wore off?"

"I'm sorry," Jensen mumbled, and Jared sighed.

"Don't be sorry. I'm just worried about you, man." He smiled and bumped Jensen's hip with his own. "I mean, I know you're clearly the biggest badass on this ship, but you lost a lot of blood saving my ass today and the energy shot can only keep you awake for so long."

They moved through into Jared's bedroom and Jared eased his hold enough to see that Jensen's cheeks were red in embarrassment. "I- I don't-"

"Hey, I wasn't making fun of you," Jared said, feeling bad at Jensen's sudden awkwardness. "You were awesome today. Really. I just live in constant fear of you passing out in the shower and dying a watery death."

He beamed when he saw Jensen's lips curve up in a timid smile, and he helped him towards the bed as the questions kept flowing. "How's your neck feeling?"

Climbing into bed, Jensen put a hand to the bandage on his throat that edged down beneath his collar. "It's okay." Jared fixed him with a skeptical stare and he amended, "It doesn't hurt that much."

"Good. That's real good, man." 

Pleased at the progress, Jared coaxed him down into a prone position and tugged the warm comforter up his body. Jensen was dressed in Jared's sweats and one of his t-shirts, looking even smaller and skinnier than usual in the oversized clothes and the oversized bed, and Jared crouched beside the giant nest-bed to twine their fingers together. 

Jensen's eyes were already half-lidded and Jared ran his thumb over Jensen's knuckles as he murmured, "I'm sorry for what I said today." 

Jensen opened his mouth in a sleepy protest but Jared kept talking, "You didn't deserve to hear any of that from me and Jeff, especially since none of it was true, and I'm sorry you had to." He brushed his fingers over the growing bruise on Jensen's cheek from where the vampyra had hit him. "I'm sorry you got hurt too."

"I've had worse," Jensen said quietly, and Jared smiled.

"Y'know, that's really not the best response to give the guy who's already insanely worried about you," he pointed out, but his smile stayed in place when Jensen squeezed his hand. "We're taking you to Hlax 2," he said, letting his voice lull Jensen to sleep. "You can get your collar taken off and have some down-time and work out what you want to do next."

Jensen's brow creased and he blinked his eyes half-open again. "You're leaving me there."

It was more of a statement than a question and Jared tilted his head to the side to look Jensen in the eyes. "We'll work that out tomorrow. For now, you need to get some sleep."

He pushed himself to his feet and let out a groan when his sore limbs ached at the movement. "Fuck, that hurts. I feel like I'm getting punished for all the old-man jokes I make about Jeff by slowly turning into an eighty-year-old."

Jensen smiled but Jared's grin faded when he saw Jensen start to sit up. "What-?"

"Stay?" Jensen asked hopefully. "Please, it's your bed..."

"And I tried to eat you today," Jared said. "Giving up my bed is the least I can do." Jensen looked up at him plaintively and Jared held his hands up. "Honestly, you don't need to worry about me. Just go to sleep."

"Please?" Jensen asked again, and Jared found himself hesitating. 

The bed wasn't really that much of a temptation - it was awesome but ultimately it was just a bed - but it was hard to say no when Jensen was looking at him like that. He _wanted_ Jensen to want things since that was independent and healthy and other good adjectives, and he wanted to be able to give Jensen the things he wanted because this was Jensen and he deserved it, but he wished those things didn't include potentially troublesome physical contact.

"Sorry," Jensen said, hunching in on himself again. "I didn't- I'll go to sleep. I'm sorry."

"No, no, no," Jared said, somehow feeling like an even bigger tool for just standing there stupidly while Jensen had been waiting for an answer. "You want me to stay and I will absolutely stay." He grinned. "I'm gonna have to insist on the pillow wall being back in place though. I gotta protect my modesty."

Jared knew Jensen's smile was more because of the bed-sharing than the modesty jokes, but he counted it as a win anyway as he toed his slippers off and clambered into the bed. 

Jensen scooted up so that Jared could shuffle across the bottom of the bed to lie down beside him, and Jared made a quick mental note of the fact that Jensen evidently wasn't all that comfortable with Jared being on top of him while he clambered across the giant pillowy nest which masqueraded as a bed.

He propped a couple of pillows between their bodies again but the reassurance hardly seemed necessary when Jensen's eyes start to drift closed as soon as his head touched down on his own pillow. He reached out sleepily to take Jared's hand and cuddled up as close as the barrier would let him, and Jared watched his expression smooth out as he relaxed into sleep. 

He looked pale against the sheets, from the blood-loss and from sheer exhaustion, and as Jared's eyes drifted over the white bandage on his neck, he knew Jeff was right; the best thing he could do for Jensen was to let him make a new life where those kinds of injuries didn't happen to him.

**+++**

Jared had no idea what species Misha actually was but he was willing to lay odds that he was the most chilled out guy in the entire universe.

Even with Jensen standing nervously beside him, Jared couldn't help but relax as the three of them strolled out of the ship to where Misha and Sam were waiting for them on the docking port at Hlax 2 with wreathes on their heads and smiles on their faces.

He expected Misha to lead the introductions but it was Sam who moved first, stepping forward to wrap Jared in a firm hug as she said, "It's good to see you again, kid." Her hair fell back from her shoulders in loose curls when she looked up at him with mock sternness. "I know Jeff is selectively illiterate when it comes to sending letters, but I'm expecting better from you, boy. Would it kill you to send me some mail once in a while when you aren't in life-threatening peril?"

"Sending mail when you're in moderate peril is fine though," Misha added, straight-faced. "Correspondence ranks above minor injuries and unfortunate curses."

Jared grinned, kissing Sam on the cheek. "I'll remember that."

"And who's this?" Sam asked, stepping to the side to get a better look at Jensen. 

Jared put his arm around Jensen's back to stop him from retreating any further and gave a quick squeeze of reassurance to prompt him to answer, "Jensen, ma'am."

"No need for 'ma'am's here, Jensen," Sam said kindly, turning her full attention to Jensen. "My name's Sam and this is Misha. We run the facilities here and it's going to be our job to see what we can do to help you out."

Jensen's eyes darted up to Jared and he stumbled over his response, "I- I don't need anything."

"Then maybe there's something you want," she said, unfazed. "Like getting that collar off, for starters."

Jared saw Jensen's hand dart up to his collar, fingers skimming over the metal. "You'd do that?"

"We do most things," Misha chimed in, and Jared was pleased to see that his peaceful expression was on the soothing rather than the unnerving end of the scale. "Except breeding lamthacks," he added apologetically, as though Jensen was going to be aghast at the lack of lamthacks. "I have allergies."

"I'm sure we'll cope without lamthacks."

Misha seemed to be satisfied with Jared's answer and looked back at Jensen. "I'm under strict instructions to give Sam and Jeff some alone time, so I'd be more than happy to help you get that collar off and to show you around."

Jensen looked at Jared for approval and Jared answered for the both of them, "Sounds good, man."

Jeff cleared his throat. "Do I get a say in this or-"

"No," Sam and Jared answered simultaneously.

Fortunately for Jared, Jeff decided to take it up with the person he most wanted to sleep with. "Well, gee, nice to see you too, Sam. I had a great journey, thanks for asking, and yes, life with Jared is still awesome in spite of the gas problems."

"I don't have gas problems," Jared whispered quickly to Jensen. "He's talking about the ship."

Misha let out a very non-Zen snigger and from the way Jensen tried to hide his smile, Jared guessed his cover story had failed. "You all suck," he muttered, looking at Jeff, Sam and Misha in turn. "You overshare about your sex life; you actually want to participate in his sex life; and you..." He looked Misha up and down. "You have weird sweaters."

Misha shrugged. "I'm three-thousand-and-twenty-seven years old. Regular sweaters got boring."

"You still all suck." His gaze traveled to Jensen and he amended, "Except Jensen. He's my favorite."

"You're breaking my heart, Junior," Jeff said with a grin, moving in to slide his arm around Sam and kiss her on the temple. "Now go with Misha and show Jensen around while Sam here has her wicked way with me."

Jared wrinkled his nose. "Dude."

Sam laughed and leaned back to pat Jeff on the head as he kissed her again, this time on the lips. "You should probably listen to him, Jared," she said when the kissing stopped but looked very content to be in Jeff's arms. "Harley's been missing you."

Jared couldn't keep the smile off his face at the thought of his dog, and Sam looked from him to Jensen when she asked, "You okay to go with these two, sweetie? I can take you myself if you'd prefer - Jeff hasn't called me for weeks now so it's not like he can't wait an extra few hours."

Jensen shook his head. "I'll stay with Jared."

Sam murmured something into Jeff's ear but Misha's hand was on his arm before Jared could question her. 

Misha tugged on his wrist just hard enough to get him moving and together they moved away from the ship and out into the green expanse of Hlax 2. Jensen slipped his hand into Jared's and Jared linked their fingers together as he whispered, quiet enough for Misha not to hear while he wandered off to collect a stray voola, "You okay?"

Jensen nodded but held onto his hand a little tighter anyway.

"I know it's overwhelming," Jared said. "It took me months to get used to being on different planets but this place is amazing. Sam and Misha are some of the best people I know."

"Misha's three-thousand-years-old?"

"And he still dresses like a toddler," Jared said, pleased to see Jensen's smirk. "I know he's kinda eccentric but he's a good guy," he added, watching Jensen relax as they walked further and further into what would hopefully be his new home. "He and Sam took really good care of me after what happened to my family."

This time the tightening of Jensen's grip was reassuring rather than anxious, and Jared cleared his throat to change the subject. "Oh, and fair warning: sometimes Misha shapeshifts when he's drunk."

 

****

+++

"And this is my grotto."

Misha gestured grandly to a small cave beside an even smaller river, and Jared dropped to a seat on the grass with a tired groan. The ground bounced beneath him, making his landing soft and easy, but firmed up again a moment later as he propped himself up on his hands, and looked across the river to where Jeff's ship was parked up on the landing dock which had marked the start of the tour.

The tour apparently hadn't made Jensen as exhausted as Jared was (although he suspected this was less to do with the tour and more to do with the fact that he'd stayed awake for way too much of the previous night watching Jensen sleep) and he settled for sprawling on the grass as Jensen went to peer inside Misha's oddly sparkly grotto. Harley ambled along next to him, nudging his head against Jensen's hand to be petted and then nuzzling against his leg when he got the attention he craved. 

The sun was bright and hot overhead but the temperature and humidity stayed just the right side of pleasant as Jared lay there and waited for Jensen, Harley and Misha to join him.

Misha got there first, settled cross-legged in the grass next to him with a bag in his lap, and Jared offered up the question, "What do you think?"

"About Jensen?"

"About Jensen staying here," Jared said, feeling his heart thump a little harder at the thought. "Do you think he'd be happy here?"

"You'd have to ask him that," Misha said calmly but spoke again before Jared could get annoyed at the evasive answer, "I think we can help him here. I think he could use some kind of stability and independence right now but it's up to him where he finds that."

Jared sighed. "What does that mean in non-cryptic talk? Can he stay here?"

"He can," Misha said, serene as always, "but that's not the question you should be asking."

Harley came bounding over before Jared had time to even work out what the correct question was, let alone to actually ask it. After licking the side of Jared's face, Harley landed heavily across Jared's legs, panting and scrabbling until he was happy with his position, and then looked up at his wayward master expectantly.

Jared scritched behind his ears and pulled him in for a teasing hug as Harley barked in delight and planted more slobbery kisses down Jared's face. 

"Who's a good boy?" Jared cooed, scrubbing his hand down Harley's back and relaxing even more at the familiar feel of the fur under his hands and the weight on his legs.

Harley yapped in confirmation that he was most definitely a good boy who deserved lots of attention and petting, and Jared kissed him on the head when a shadow fell over them both.

It went away a second later when Jensen lowered himself to the ground beside them but the anxious, regretful feeling in Jared's chest rose up once again when he noticed how Jensen instinctively sank to his knees first before settling back into a sitting position. 

Giving Harley one more pat, he looked more closely at Jensen but was relieved to see that he looked happy and relaxed even with the bruises and the bandages still standing out as proof of how Jared and Jeff had failed to keep him safe.

There was a rustling on his other side and he looked over to see Misha pulling what looked like a gun out of his bag. Jensen flinched backwards, startled, and Jared guessed he must have jumped too since Harley dismounted in protest and went to flop on the grass beside Jensen instead.

"What the hell, man?" he asked when he'd gotten over the 'holy shit, Misha is armed' panic. "Since when do you carry weapons?"

Misha raised his eyebrows. "Oh, please. My gun-wielding phase was twelve centuries ago." 

The 'twelve centuries' thing seemed to freak Jensen out almost as much as the gun itself and Misha addressed him as he explained, "It's for cutting through the collar. There's a protective shield I can put against your neck to stop you getting hurt and this should have you freed in a few seconds."

Jared had absolutely no way of telling which thing Jensen was most freaked out about now. He scooted over to rest a hand on Jensen's shoulder and fixed a calm, confident expression on his face when Jensen looked up at him, already breathing faster. "Hey, it's okay. No-one's going to make you do anything. If you want to keep it on-"

"I don't," Jensen said. "I don't want it on anymore."

"Then we'll take it off," Jared promised. "I'll be right here with you."

"If it helps, I've done this before," Misha said, holding the gun out so Jensen could get a better look at it. "No accidents for over two millennia."

Jensen smiled at that but was still visibly nervous as he asked, "What do I do?"

Misha moved forward until he was sitting next to Jensen and facing his neck. He held up what looked like thick, shiny, black paper and leaned forward to tuck it under Jensen's collar as he said, "All you need to do is keep still for me. The shield will protect your skin and the laser will cut through the metal easily." He glanced over at Jared as he added, "I checked already - the collar's not electrified."

Jensen tilted his head to the side but Jared saw his hands tremble when Misha guided it a little further over to give him better access. He reached out to take both of Jensen's hands in his when he heard the hum of the laser powering up, and he tried to stop them shaking. "It's all right. I'm right here."

The hum lowered in pitch when Misha started to guide the laser through the metal. Jensen closed his eyes tight, clearly fighting to keep still, and Jared let him grip his hands tighter as he realized that holding a weapon to the neck of someone who was nearly slaughtered by a vampyra wasn't the smartest idea ever.

Misha was done in seconds but Jared's sigh of relief didn't make it out of his mouth before Misha said, "Okay, now I just need to do the other side."

Jensen bit his lip as Misha rotated the collar so that it could be sliced in half, but Jared was grateful to see that he had opened his eyes again.

"Look at me, okay?" he told him, meeting Jensen's gaze and trying not to think about the vampyra sinking its fangs into Jensen's too-vulnerable neck less than a day earlier. "Keep your eyes on mine."

Jensen did as he was told and Jared forced himself to smile, or at least look as reassuring as possible, when the lower-pitched hum started up again. Misha's progress seemed slower this time and Jared found himself holding his breath as he stared into Jensen's wide eyes.

When the collar broke, it did so almost soundlessly. 

The thud of it hitting the floor was what caught his attention and Jared looked down to see the two halves of the metal ring that had fallen away, leaving Jensen’s neck bare except for the bandage. He exhaled with a grin, ready to break out the party hats and cake-cannons in celebration, but kept quiet when he saw Jensen staring in disbelief at the half of the collar that had landed in his lap.

"All done," Misha said, slipping the laser gun back into his bag. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Jensen shook his head but he didn't speak as he picked up the collar, turning it this way and that to let the sunlight glint off the broken metal. His other hand went to the band of red around his neck from where the collar had rubbed against his skin and Jared watched his hands tremble at the tangible proof of his freedom.

"Thank you," Jensen said, looking between him and Misha and then at something over Misha's shoulder. Jared turned to see Sam and Jeff standing close by on the little stone bridge over the river, looking disheveled but pleased, and he turned back as Jensen murmured, stunned, "I never thought I'd get it taken off..."

Harley came trotting over, keen to investigate now that the big scary laser had gone away, and Jared reached out a hand to stop him from stealing either half of the collar. 

"Hey, no. Those aren't yours," he scolded, tapping Harley on the nose and then scratching the back of his neck as the dog butted his head against his chest in a demand for affection. "They're Jensen's. No stealing."

"He can have them," Jensen said, laughing when Harley gave one half of the collar an experimental lick. Jensen held it out for him to take in up in his mouth and Harley bounded away, delighted with his prize, while Jensen took hold of the other half and stood up to toss it into the river. 

While the river might have been pitifully small, Jared knew from experience that it was impossibly deep and the metal half-ring landed in the water with a satisfying smack before sinking out of sight into the dark depths. 

Jensen seemed relieved to be rid of it and Jared got to his feet to rest a hand on his shoulder as he asked, only half-teasing, "So, what now? You're free; the universe is your sea-dwelling mollusk of choice."

Misha moved to stand on Jensen's other side, and Jared could feel Sam and Jeff watching from the bridge when Misha prompted, "Have you thought about where you might want to stay? I know the tour was just a brief introduction but if you saw anything you liked, we can find room for you there or we can go explore some more." He glanced over at Jared before asking purposefully, "What do you want, Jensen?"

Jensen swallowed nervously, twisting his fingers together now that he didn't have the collar in his hands anymore, and Jared's heart stuttered in his chest when Jensen turned to face him. He was braced for Jensen's departure – he'd told himself more than enough times that this was what Jensen needed in order to be happy and healthy and not to be snack-food for any more monsters – but his stomach was still twisted up in knots when Jensen looked up at him to say his goodbyes.

"I want to stay with you."

Jared was pretty sure he was suffering from some kind of auditory hallucination. He blinked, and then tried and failed to blink with his ears, and then asked less-than-coherently, "Huh?" 

"I want to stay with you?" Jensen repeated, now looking even more nervous. "I- You don't have to take me - I know I can't do much and I don't want to be any trouble - but he asked me what I wanted and-" He cut himself off and hunched in on himself. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"You can stay," Jared blurted out. He wished he'd blurted it out sooner when he saw Jensen's head snap up in surprise but he said it again it for clarity's sake, "You can stay, Jensen. God, of course you can stay."

"Really?" Jensen looked to where Jeff was standing and from the way his smile widened, Jared guessed Jeff's expression must've been of the rare, non-grumpy variety. "Thank you." He looked as delighted as Jared had ever seen him as he repeated, beaming, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"Hey, you don't need to-"

He was cut off when Jensen leaned up to kiss him, a quick and impulsive contact that left Jared dazed and fumbling for words when Jensen pulled back and said yet again, "Thank you so much, Jared. I- Thank you."

There was too much to take in, with the kissing and the thanking and the fucking amazing smile on Jensen's face, and so Jared settled for resting his hands on Jensen's hips and shutting out the rest of their surroundings. His eyes drifted down to the bandage on Jensen's neck and as bad as he felt for getting Jensen hurt, the bare skin where his collar used to be now served as proof that he'd actually been able to help Jensen instead of just putting him in danger. 

Jensen's smile was enough to erase the last of his lingering doubts and Jared couldn't contain his own happiness. 

"Trust me," he replied with an equally delighted grin, "you're more than welcome."


End file.
